m 







PUBLIC EXERCISES 



k 




lagtiig 0f th €mm ^imu 



PEOPLE'S COLLEGE, 



HAVANA, N. Y 



I[)i(iv^c^i)(j, 8cpifi»|^fi» 9J, % ^. iS^S. 




NEW YOKK : a 

JOHX F. TROW, PRINTER, 377 & 379 JiROADWAV, ^ 

1 • O U X K u o F WHITE S 1 I! K E T . 











1858. 




'^^^^'ocr6^ I 



PUBLIC EXERCISES 



paging fif t\t €sn\tx ^tswt 



PEOPLE'S COLLEGE 



5 



HAYAJsTA, IST. Y 



Jl}ili'3c)^t|, §cpi6l-ii5cl' 2c\ a. S. 18-58. 



NEW YORK : 
JOHN" F. TROW, PRINTER, 3Y7 & 379 BROADWAY, 

OOBNEE OF WHITE STREET. 

1858. 







/ YORK PUBL. LIDk 



EXERCISES. 



An assemblage of fifteen thousand persons, as it is estimated, 
having convened to engage in the Ceremonies of laying the Corner- 
Stone of the People's College Edifice, on Thursday, the second 
day of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, a procession was 
formed at the Court House, in the village of Havana, Schuyler 
County, New York, at ten o'clock in the morning, under the direc- 
tion of Colonel E. C. Fkost, Grand Marshal, and proceeded in due 
order to the College grounds. 

OKDER OF PROCESSION. % 

1. The Havana Band, and Cook Guards. 

2. President, and Trustees of the College. 

3. Orator, Chaplain, and other Speakers on the occasion. 

4. Officers of the State, and of the United States Government. 

5. Officers of other Colleges. 

6. Clergymen, and Gentlemen of the other Learned Professions. 

7. Architect, and Principal Mechanics, engaged on the College 

Edifice. 

8. Free and Accepted Masons, in full regalia. 

9. Stockholders in the College, and Citizens generally. 

The exercises at the College Grounds were the following : — 

The Hon. Charles Cook said : — 

Ladles and Gentlemen — Being charged by the Trustees with 
the duties of President of the day, in their behalf I have to request 
your profound and silent attention to the interestiug ceremonies that 
are now before us. 

Prayer will be said by the Rev. Doctor Jackson, President of 
Hobart Free College. 

PRAYER. 

Almighty God, in whom we live, and move, and have our being, 
we desire to acknowledge Thee as our Father and our God. Thou 
hast created us, and endowed us with noble faculties, to enable us to 



serve Thee and to hold communion with Thee. Thou hast made us 
for thyself, in such likeness to Thee that our highest happiness shall 
consist in knowing Thee and doing Thy will. And when, by dis- 
obedience, we sinned and forfeited our first estate of glory and bliss, 
in communion with Thee, thou didst of thine infinite mercy save us 
from our lost estate, and restore us to Thy presence and favor, through 
the death of Thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ, and, by the gift of 
the Holy Ghost to purify and quicken the hearts of men, didst pro- 
vide for the regeneration of our race, and its elevation to order and 
happiness. To the incarnation of thine only Son, our adorable 
Saviour, taking humanity up into union with his Grodhead, and im- 
parting to it a divine life, do we owe all the beauty and strength of 
our civilization. Thou art the only fountain of knowledge. From 
Thee, Lord, has rayed forth all that science which, overleaping 
time and space, is now uniting distant nations by new ties of 
brotherhood. We give Thee our humble thanks for all the bless- 
ings of light and knowledge which distinguish our age and country — 
for our free press, for our free schools, for our higher institutions of 
learning, and above all, for a pure Christianity. 

And now, we beseech Thee, Lord, to look with favor upon our 
present work, which we undertake in Thy name. May all who shall 
have any share in planning and building up this institution, be en- 
lightened and guided by Thy heavenly wisdom, so as to advance Thy 
glory and promote the good of their fellow-men. Make them to un- 
derstand how best to spread throughout this land, the blessings of 
useful knowledge, and of skill in all the arts which support and adorn 
human life. Enable them so to adapt their means of instruction to 
the wants of our time and country, that many who have hitherto 
been debarred from the higher walks of learning, may be elevated to 
a new capacity for usefulness amongst men. Bless, we beseech Thee, 
all who may aid in this work. And raise up many friends and bene- 
factors to supply means for carrying it forward, so as to secure its 
beneficent aims. May all who are taught here be taught of Thee. 
And may they find their highest wisdom and eternal life in knowing 
Thee the only God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. Finally, 
we invoke Thy blessing on the assembly here present, and especially 
on those who are to be engaged in the exercises of this day. Pardon 
whatever Thy pure eye may see amiss in us or our services. And 
grant that we may all so serve Thee in this life, that in the world to 
come we may attain unto life everlasting, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 



MUSIC — ODE. 

By the Eev. S. Mills Day, A. M. 

With voice of melody and song 

In this glad hour we meet, 
x\nd pour the choral notes along 

That well its coming greet ; 
While here, these fair, green hills among. 

And on this festive day, 
Ujoon foundations broad and strong. 

This Corner-Stone we lay. 

Here, while old memories awake 

Of tribes long passed away. 
Whose names, round many a stream and lake 

Still unforgotten play ; 
Midst recollections of our sires 

Who bravely won their way, 
Through perils great, to victories, 

This Corner-Stone we lay. 

We seek, upon this pleasant heighi, 

An edifice to raise. 
Where Art and Science shall delight 

To find a dwelling place ; 
The Scholar and the Artisan 

May here their footsteps stay, 
With common interest in this plan — 

Its Corner-Stone we lay. 

We cherish in our hearts the glow 

Of ardent hope, that hence 
Through long revolving years shall flow 

A happy influence : 
That on the work kind Heaven may smile, 

Would we devoutly pray, 
And ask God's blessing on us, while 

This Corner-Stone we lay. 



A BRIEF EXPOSITION OF THE PLANS AND PUK- 
POSES OF THE COLLEGE, 

By the Peesident, Amos Buown, LL. D. 

In performing the part assigned me to-day, I shall not long de- 
tain you from the more interesting and instructive portions of the 
ceremony in which we are engaged. 

The present age has been pre-eminently productive of striking 
results. During the lifetime of many present, the spirit of the age 
has displayed itself in almost numberless variety of forms to the high 
admiration of the civilized world. Valleys have been raised, moun- 
tains levelled, cleft or tunnelled, highways constructed, and machinery 
so applied and propelled, that velocity has virtually contracted greatly 
both space and time, and has made travel, which was once so difficult 
and wearisome, only pastime. The winds and the waters have been 
brought into new relations, and so made to perform in almost all the 
departments of labor, with exactitude and despatch, what before had 
been thought to be impossibilities. The lightning has been sent 
obediently along a network of wires to distant places, enabling us to 
converse, as if face to face, friend with friend, in any part of the land ; 
nay, if we choose, to send our inquiries beyond the broad Atlantic, 
to ascertain how men are thinking and feeling away in the remote 
country of our ancestors. 

But gratified, as we properly are, with these and such like achieve- 
ments, is not, after all, a ground of higher admiration, a more per- 
fect knowledge of the human mind, its necessities, and the best 
methods of supplying them ? 

The mind is immortal, but the material substance is perishable ; 
the one is the subject of enjoyment, the other a condition of it only; 
the one is the mistress, the other her servant ; the one a cause, self- 
moving, self-controlling, the source of beauty, truth, justice and good- 
ness; the other an effect only. Understanding is a well-spring of 
life, the foundation and framework of civilized society, 

" The good we do men, however great, is ever transient ; the 
truths we leave them, are eternal." 

Nor is this conviction limited and casual, but constant and preva- 
lent. The fathers of this country possessed it, as is evinced by their 
early efforts to found, at great sacrifice of labor and property, Har- 



vard College ; by the common school system, whose origin was coeral 
nearly with that of the Plymouth and the Massachusetts colonies ; it 
has descended to our own times, as is manifest by the profound in- 
terest which has, within the last quarter of a century, pervaded so 
many of the States of this confederacy, on the subject of education. 

And, if we take counsel of the imagination, will not the same 
conclusion be forced upon us ? Fulton, who first applied steam to 
navigation ; Franklin, who first drew lightning from the clouds ; and 
Morse, who has taught how, through its intervention, thought can 
make itself known at almost incalculable distances, have all so iden- 
tified their names with their works, that they will be remembered and 
respected, while language lasts. 

But as the generations go by, shall not the names of those men, 
who have taught how the mind may be perfected, and have gener- 
ously supplied the means of its accomplishment, shine with a more 
eminent lustre ? The love of humanity holds an exalted rank among 
our active powers ; those by consequence, who interest themselves 
most in what most redounds to the welfare of the race, making fce 
greatest sacrifices for it, shall be most esteemed. 

To educate, is the highest of earthly employments, whether re- 
garded in its effects upon mind itself, or in the beneficial results to 
follow from its increased grasp and energy. 

We call this institution the People's College, intending, as I sup- 
pose, that the name shall indicate something of its purpose; and the 
word People's has undoubtedly a particular significance as used in 
this connection. Not, however, that any engaged in erecting the 
College, would intimate that the highest authority known to the 
world resides in the people, that wisdom, power and justice have their 
root and spring from them, and that other dependence is to be dis- 
carded. Nor that any, so engaged, believe that the people, distin- 
guishing the many from the few, the unlearned from the learned, best 
know their mental wants, and have the most skill to supply them. 
Nor again, that humanity has so declined in the bosoms of the culti- 
vated portions of men, that they are prepared to mock at or neglect 
altogether the wants of their less fortunate fellow-citizens. Nor 
again, that any would bring down the standard of education in this 
country to a lower level than that to which it has attained. The 
name, as used by the founders of the College, intends nothing boast- 
ful or reproachful ; it is meant to suggest only, what most reflecting 
persons concede, that some modification of the prevailing systems of 
College education in this country, is demanded to enable them better 



to subserve tlie wants of the people. The title is intended to be sig- 
nificant, 1st, because it is expected that the College will, on pecuniary 
grounds, be more easily accessible to young persons seeking an edu- 
cation, than most institutions of similar grade ; and 2d, because while 
the discipline of the mind and instruction in the sciences and letters 
will be here properly cared for, the application of the sciences to the 
arts will be particularly attended to ; thus making the College both 
a disciplinary and professional institution. 

This College was chartered by the Legislature of New York, in 
April, 1853, and there were conferred upon it the immunities and 
privileges common to the colleges of the country. It is provided, 
however, in the charter, that the diplomas or honorary testimonials 
conferred on students, shall expressly specify the branches which the 
student has mastered, and those only. 

The capital stock of the College must consist of $250,000, and 
may be increased to $500,000. 

The institution was founded to promote literature, science, arts 
and agriculture. Accordingly, it appears from the by-laws of the 
Trustees, that it is to be, first, eminently educational, and this it must 
be, or fail to answer the ends of its existence. Mental, no less than 
bodily growth and perfection, results from activity. It should be 
added, from that which is definite and systematic, and not from that 
which is fitful or misapplied. Education is the profoundest of sci- 
ences ; and this I suggest, to show that the People's College, by so 
much, has and must have, an end in common with all co-ordinate 
seminaries of learning, to be attained by substantially the same means. 
Nor, I will further suggest, is it doubtful to any considerable extent 
as to what those means must be. The means must conform to man's 
nature and relations. Man, now, is a complex being, not only as 
composed of body and mind, the mind is diverse in character. It 
is made up of groups of faculties, which we denominate intellect, 
sensitivity, and will. The means must, therefore, be definite, as an- 
swering to the law of habit, and diverse as answering to the diversi- 
fied nature of the mind. 

To give it consistency in its enlargement, the mind must be edu- 
cated with respect to its powers of perception, conception, attention, 
memory, judgment, reason and imagination ; the emotion of beauty, 
reverence, adoration and hope ; the social, moral, and religious affec- 
tions, the conscience and the will. By every method suggested by 
the judgment, experience and revelation, man must be put into har- 
mony with himself, the material and the sensible worlds around him, 
and with his God. 



In the People's College, are to be taught for the sake of disci- 
pline, the Trustees say, pure and mixed Mathematics, the Ancient 
and the Modern Languages, History, G-eography, Esthetics, Mental 
and Moral Philosophy, and the revelations of the Bible. 

Our possessions are chiefly the effects of industry. The gifts of 
Providence are mostly the rewards of fidelity. 

In recognition of these facts, the Trustees design, in the second 
place, to qualify their graduates for the eflacient discharge of the 
practical duties of life, and to provide the means of elevating labor. 
And this, as I understand the subject, is, more than any other, to be 
the distinguishing feature of this College ; to lighten burdens by in- 
creasing the ability to bear them, and to remove oppression by re- 
moving the motives to it. 

Hence, on recurring again to the by-laws of the seminary, I find 
these declared to be objects of its overseers. 1. To so arrange the 
exercises of students as to qualify them upon graduation to enter at 
once upon the business of their choice, by giving not only a theo. 
retic, but a full, systematic, practical course of instruction, illustftir 
tive of the principles and laws upon which their business is based 
and should be conducted. 

2. To elevate labor, by requiring each student to work upon the 
farm, or in the shop, a portion of five days in a week. 

3. To afford adults opportunities of pursuing any favorite branch 
of study. 

In subservience to these designs, students, say the Trustees, are 
to be required to master text-books on Geology, Botany, Chemistry, 
Entomology, Anatomy, Physiology, and the Natural Sciences gener- 
ally; on Architecture, Engineering, Bridging, Road-Making, Agri- 
culture, Grardening, &c. 

Courses of lectures are to be given, which not only the inmates 
of the College may attend, but the farmer, mechanic, or day laborer, 
defraying the expense of such attendance, if he choose, by working 
upon the farm or in the shops. 

4. The farm and workshops are to be models of imitation, to the 
end, that visitors from a distance, as well as the inhabitants of the 
surrounding country, may receive useful hints in respect to their 
various avocations. 

5. It is intended, also, that here may be seen and procured the 
finest specimens of mechanism, the choicest varieties of fruits, grapes, 
roots, &c., adapted to this climate, with the information essential to 
their culture ; the best machines and implements adapted to machan- 



10 

ical and agricultural industry, with a full and particular description 
of their uses. 

The College farm, which consists of two hundred acres of land 
of variegated soil, has been secured to the College by deed, and 
shops with their implements, are soon to be provided. In regard, 
however, to these arrangements, here referred to, it may be well for 
me to remark in passing, that it is not yet quite determined what 
connection shall subsist between the College as a literary institution, 
and as an institution to answer the second purpose of its founders, 
to facilitate the rewards of industry, &c. 

The plan most approved, as I believe, is substantially the follow- 
ing : The Trustees are to own the farm and shops with the stock, 
implements, and tools appended, but these they will, for a considera- 
tion or otherwise, transfer to agents to be used for specific ends for 
the benefit of the College. The business of the farm and shops is to 
be conducted at the risk of the agents. They are to stipulate with 
the students in respect to the precise amount of labor to be per- 
formed by them severally, and the remuneration which they are to 
receive. 

Curriculums of study have not been yet prepared. But it is 
manifest that the course of study to be pursued by those who intend 
to go through with a thorough drill in departments necessary to a 
training of all the distinct powers of mind, must be abridged, or 
another substituted for those, who propose to themselves a less 
thorough drill. If it is decided that a full course of study, to in- 
clude the Ancient Languages, Mental and Moral Philosophy, &c., 
shall occupy four or five years, another course, from which a portion 
of the Ancient Languages has been dropped, but the Modern retained, 
or even extended, and in which the Philosophies have been abridged, 
can be limited to three years. Then, there may be a provisional 
course ; by which, I mean, that the College may be opened to any 
individual for a period of six months, or a year, or a longer time, 
provided that he is prepared to maintain a standing in some one of 
the established classes. 

The question, whether the moral and physical well-being of stu- 
dents would be best promoted by the adoption of the German method 
of permitting them to find their homes, as they might, in the various 
families of the neighborhood of the College, or by requiring them to 
live at the institution, has been agitated, and opinions regarding it 
are still divided. 

But, to my mind, the presumption is strong, that a College of this 



11 

character cannot be successfully conducted on the G-erman method. 
The routine of exercises, to avoid confusion and waste, must, it is 
manifest, be here performed with something of a military jDrecision ; 
and government, while it is conciliatory and kind, must be authori- 
tative and pervading. The evils, therefore, resulting from association, 
must, I think, be here prevented by an increased cultivation of the so. 
cial powers, by systematic labor and care. 

The work on the College edifice was begun on the 8th day of 
September, 1857. 

The foundations and basement story have been completed, and 
floor-timbers put on, at an expense of about $12,000. The founda- 
tions of the outside walls, made of large, flat stones, weighing, some 
of them, from four to five tons each, embedded firmly in hydraulic ce- 
ment, vary in width from nine to twelve feet, and are on the average, 
three and a half feet deep. The basement walls are two feet thick 
and ten feet high, substantially made of the best quality of stone. 
The building, when finished, will be three hundred and twenty feet 
long, fifty-two feet wide, and four stories high, above the basemeA. 
The wings, at either end, will be two hundred and six feet long, and 
of the same width and height as the main-building ; and the centre 
projection is seventy-nine feet long by sixty four feet wide. A cupola 
of octagonal form, thirty-six feet in diameter, and extending upwards 
fifty feet from the apex of the roof, is to surmount the building, and 
a cupola is to be placed on each of the end wings. 

The house is arranged for a chapel of a size to seat 1,300 persons, 
for 10 lecture rooms, 47 rooms for the President, Professors, Secretary 
and Treasurer, and 220 chambers for students, each to accommodate 
two persons. It will, also, contain a culinary department, and suit- 
able rooms for the steward. It will be thoroughly ventilated into the 
chimneys, and heated by furnaces. Its estimated cost is $175 000. 

In respect, now, to the importance of this College enterprise there 
will not, probably, be much difference in opinion. The wisdom of 
the means by which it is proposed to achieve the undertakino- must 
be left, in some measure, to the test of experience. They will be 
criticised, and the friends of the institution have the right only to in- 
sist that the subject be candidly canvassed. 

How are the funds for the accomplishment of so vast a work to 
be obtained, it is not here in place for me to inquire. I am, however 
encouraged to believe, that the enterprise will not fail for the lack 
of funds to sustain it. 

" And Isaac spake unto Abraham, his father," as they went on 



12 

together througli the wilderness of Sinai, we read, " and said, my fa. 
ther, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt 
offering ? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a 
lamb for a burnt offering." 

Having begun this labor for the glory of Abraham's Grod, in the 
elevation and happiness of the human family, we may surely rely on 
His Providence for the means of its successful accomplishment. 

Almost on the very spot which we occupy to-day, but a little 
more than half a century ago, the famous Indian Queen, Catharine 
Montour, had her wigwam, and was waited on by her savage attend- 
ants ; barbarism and rudeness reigned throughout this wide, beauti- 
fnl region of country, the monuments of which may still be seen. 
But to fulfil some grand design, Grod has caused the change to take 
place, of which we are the witnesses ; the wilderness and the solitary 
places to blossom as the rose. And can this be less than an earnest 
of the same Divine Power, still working in this land, of his beneficent 
regards to the attainment of a purpose of a similar character, more 
grand and glorious ? Is it not history from which faith may derive 
support ? 

Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build. 
But what people could ever say, as we can, " The Lord has been 
mindful of us ? " How few really worthy schemes have failed, in 
this country, for the lack of funds to sustain them ! 

We assume, that this enterprise was commenced by Divine inter- 
position, and, that if so begun, it is sure to be completed. 



CEEEMONIES OP LAYING THE STONE BY THE FREE 
AND ACCEPTED MASONS. 

The stone having been lowered to its place by sound of solemn 
music, M. W. John L. Lewis, Jr., Grand Master for the State of 
New York, said : — 

R. W. Deptxty Grand Master : Apply the implement of your 
office to the stone and make report. 

D. G. M. applied the square, and said : 

Most Worshipful : The stone is square ; the workmen have done 
their duty. 

Grand Master : R. W. Brother Senior Grand Warden : Apply 
the implement of your office to the stone, and make report. 



13 

Senior G-rand Warden applied tlie level, and said : 

M. "W., the stone is level ; the workmen have done their duty. 

Grand Master : R. W. Brother Junior Grand Warden : Apply 
the implement of your office to the stone, and make report. 

Junior Grand Warden applied the plumb, and said : 

M. W., the stone is plumb ; the workmen have done their duty. 

Grand Master : This Corner-Stone having been tested by the 
proper implements of Masonry, I find it well formed, true and trusty, 
and correctly laid, according to the rules of our ancient Craft. — Let 
the elements of Consecration be presented. 

D. G. Master sprinkled corn [wheat], and said : 

I sprinkle this corn as an emblem of plenty ; may the blessings 
of bounteous Heaven be showered down upon us, and may our hearts 
be filled with gratitude. Response : " So mote it be ! " 

S. G. Warden sprinkled wine, and said : 

I pour this wine as an emblem of joy and gladness. May our 
hearts be made glad by the influence of Divine truth, and may vir- 
tue flourish as the vine. Response : " So mote it be! " % 

J. G. Warden poured oil, and said : 

I pour this oil as an emblem of peace : may peace and harmony, 
good will and brotherly love, abound among us. Response : " So 
mote it be ! " 

The grand honors were then given by all the brethren by three 
times three. The Grand Master then struck the stone thrice with 
the mallet, and said : 

Having now, with the assistance of the Grand Lodge and the 
fraternity, laid the Corner-Stone of the People's College, according 
to the rules of our ancient Craft, we should supplicate the blessing 
of the Great Architect of the Universe upon this undertaking, and 
implore that He will bless this newly-founded seat of learning. 

May the All-bounteous Author of Nature bless all who are here 
assembled to witness this auspicious ceremony, with the necessaries, 
conveniences and comforts of life ; assist in the erection and comple- 
tion of this building ; protect the workmen from every accident, and 
long preserve this structure from decay, and while granting to us all 
a supply of the Corn of nourishment, the Wine of refreshment, and 
the Oil of joy, make the People's College worthy of its significant 
title, a blessing to this and coming generations of seekers after 
knowledge, and an honor to this great State. Amen ! Response : 
" So mote it be ! " 

The plan of the building having been inspected by the Grand 
Master, he returned it with the tools to the Architect, and said : 



14 

Mr. Architect : These plans having been adopted by the Trus- 
tees of the College, and approved by us, we return them to you 
together with these implements of your art, with the hope that un- 
der your skilful guidance, the building may progress to completion 
with due speed, and that it may long remain as a monument of your 
skill as an architect, and of the enterprise of those who projected the 
design. 



ADDK E SS 

By the Grand Mastee. 

And now. Brethren, that the ceremonial part of our duty has been 
discharged, permit me to say, it is fitting that Free Masons should be 
here in character as such, for to them not only are architecture and 
its implements as household words, but ihey have a heartfelt interest 
in whatever adds to the sum of human knowledge. Not to the Mason 
now, is it given to uprear the lofty dome, or erect the stately edifice, 
but each well-proportioned column, nay, each polished stone and each 
implement of labor, have to him a significant and speaking language. 
Those who have gone before us, have left their records, which even 
the finger of Time cannot eff'ace, upon cathedral and proud old fanes 
of the Eastern world. There they yet stand in their stately edifices, 
as solid and enduring as they were at the commencement of the roll- 
ing centuries which have passed over them, and mute, but irrefraga- 
ble evidences of the utility and antiquity of the Craft. As Free and 
Accepted Masons, we no longer employ the Square, Plumb, and Level 
in the manual labor of architecture ; but the moral truth which they 
inculcate enables us by their use to construct a moral edifice whose 
cap-stone will be laid in eternity. In the impressive language of our 
ritual : " The Plumb admonishes to walk uprightly in our several 
professions," etc. It was fitting, therefore, that when an institution 
of learning was to be erected, that the same Craft which builded, 
amongst a host of others, the Cathedral at Strasburgh, St. Paul's at 
London, and many of the University buildings at Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, should place its corner-stone. 

It has been a part of my pleasing duty within a little more than 
a year past, in person, or by representative, to have officiated in laying 
the corner-stones, of a noble hall of justice, three State armories, and 
two lofty monuments to departed worth and patriotism. The wise 
administration of human laws — the well furnished armament of de- 



15' 

fence, and the marbled chaplet of sorrow and affection, have each 
taught their impressive and useful lessons, but none of them have 
taught lessons of such deep import to the citizen and the moving 
millions of our race as will be taught by this temple of learning, where 
the useful and the true are to be its lessons. 

It has been our lot, as an association embracing all classes of 
men, to have been judged by the merest externals, and it is with a 
feeling of sorrow, untainted by bitterness or anger, that we are com- 
pelled to say, that the Fraternity has been tried without a hearing and 
condemned without evidence. Carefully and wisely refraining from 
religious sectarianism and party polities, it has had to struggle with 
sectarian rancor and be assailed by party zeal. It could only submit 
to these things in silence ; it could not even return the answer of the 
noble Grecian : " Strike, but hear ! " 

Let it be our confidence and trust, that those who shall be edu- 
cated at this institution, will be induced to investigate the principles 
of Masonry, and, looking beyond the mere outward forms of rites 
and ceremonies, which are the dead images of living things, to seA 
the truths which are hidden, like all the teachings of olden time, 
beneath the veil of symbol and allegory, and thus find that it has, 
with its peculiar laws, language, and literature, world-wide sympa- 
thies and brotherhood. 

My Brethren, permit me to congratulate you upon the prosperous 
condition of the Fraternity within this jurisdiction. From the east- 
ern extremity of our great State, where the ocean tumbles its bil- 
lows, to the western border, where the thunders of the cataract roll 
in their mighty and continuous anthem, there is now an array of 
the brotherhood — one great and united household, separated, it is 
true, for convenience, into 410 lodges, with 35,000 members, — one in 
heart and purpose. Long may this continue ! But may we be more 
zealous of good works than of increase. Then shall our ancient 
Craft, tracing its lineage from the College of Artificers at Eome 
through the Architects of Asia and the Builders of the Middle Ages, 
be judged with a riehteous judgment, and our exclusiveness in mem- 
bership be taken for what it is meant to be — a testament and a trial 
of personal worth. Then, on some like future occasion, to the ques- 
tion : " Watchman, what of the night ? " the answer will come dis- 
tinct and clear as the rushing sound of silvery waters : " The morn- 
ing Cometh — a glorious morning, to which no night shall ever come," 



16 



AKTICLES DEPOSITED WITHIN THE CORNER-STONE. 

1. The Holy Bible. 

2. The Charter of the College and By-Laws of the Trustees. 

3. The Blue Book, (Congress.) 

4. The Red Book, (N. Y. State Manual.) 

5. The last Annual Message of President Buchanan. 

6. Lives of the Governors of the State of New York, (from Clin- 
ton to Fish.) 

7. Governor King's last Annual Message. 

8. An Autograph letter of Governor King. 

9. " " Ex-Governor Hunt. 

10. " " " Bouck. 

11. " " " Clark. 

12. " " " Seymour. 

13. " " Lieutenant-Governor Patterson. 

14. " " " " Church. 

15. '' " Cyrus W. Eield. 

16. A portion of the Atlantic Cable, presented by Master James 
M. Decker. 

17. A brief history of St. Paul's Church, Havana. 

18. " " Presbyterian, " 

19. " " Methodist Episcopal, " 

20. A two dollar note of the Bank of Bath. 

21. Eight dollars of the Bank of Havana. 

22. The Order of Exercises of the Day. 

23. A copy of the Introductory Hymn, by Rev. S. Mills Day. 

24. '' " " Closing Ode, by John B. Look. 

25. Morrill's Land Bill, and Speech on the same. 

26. Most of the principal newspapers published in the larger 
cities of the Union, and in the counties adjoining Schuyler, and 
many of the other counties of the State. 



17 



MUSIC — ODE. 

By John A. Look, Esq. 

'Tis done : — the Corner-Stone is laid ; 

The People's College here 
Will soon uplift its lofty dome, 

Its massive columns rear ; 
Wisdom and labor shall unite 

To form the perfect man, 
And Science to her rugged height, 

Shall lead the laborer on. 

Concealed within this Corner-Stone, 

Laid by fraternal hands, 
Are treasures, which, in future years, 

May burst their rocky bands, 
And, to our children, yet unborn, 

Point to the festal day. 
This Ashler from our hills was torn 

This Corner-Stone to lay. 

The gavel, gage, and trowel now 

Are in the craftsmen's hands, 
The Master, on the trestle board, 

Has well displayed his plans ; 
Then with the level, plumb and gage, 

Direct each wise design, 
And rear a temple for the age, 

A model for all time. 

And may the Architect above, 

Who formed the lodge on high, 
Regard each master-builder here 

With His " All-Seeing Eye," 
And when our labor is complete, 

The Master shall be praised, 
Whose bounteous love will kindly greet 

The "Entered," " Passed," and " Raised." 
9, 



18 



A D D E E S S 

By the Rev. Mark Hopkins, D. D., President of "Williams College. 

The invitation to address you at ttis time, Mr. President, and 
Ladies and Gentlemen, was accepted by me with great hesitation. 
Worn by labors and cares in my own sphere, quite equal, and more 
than equal to my strength, I did not feel that I could do justice to 
this occasion. But, aside from the urgency of friends and the hope 
of your indulgence, there were two considerations that had special 
weight with me. 

The first was, a desire to do honor to that individual munificence 
to which the public is to be indebted for the magnificent structure of 
which the Corner-Stone has now been laid. In this every citizen of 
the whole country has an interest, and may feel a just pride, not 
merely from its efi"ects on the country for the future, but because it 
is a legitimate and beautiful outgrowth of those free institutions 
under which we live, and which we all cherish. 

Nowhere is individual enterprise as free as here to work out its 
chosen results. Here is equal protection to every form of honest 
industry ; there is no caste or permanent social distinction, and what- 
ever the individual man may legitimately be or do anywhere, he may 
be and do here. In other countries the tendency is to merge the 
individual in the State ; our problem is, so to construct the State as 
not only to permit, but to stimulate the best growth of the individual. 
When this has been done, the permanence and beauty of our institu- 
tions will depend upon the feelings of the individuals thus protected 
and fostered towards the State and the community thus constituted. 
When, therefore, we see one, who by his own industry and enter- 
prise has honorably acquired wealth, and so the elements of power 
and of a control of the future, recognizing his obligations to the insti- 
tutions under which he has prospered, inquiring how he may best 
vitalize and strengthen the roots of their prosperity, and pouring out 
his wealth like water for that purpose, we feel that it is a fit, as well 
as a welcome tribute to those institutions. We feel that there is thus 
completed a circle of vital influence in the public life, like that be- 
tween the stomach and the heart, by which that life may not only be 
perpetuated, but may be perpetually augmented. 

As we have now reached the period in our history, and a point in 



19 

our material progress, wliere accumulations of wealth must be more 
frequent and greater, and as, in a republic where there are no other 
distinctions, the tendency is to deify wealth, he must be, aside from 
any specific donation, a public benefactor, who causes to prevail in 
the community higher and more rational views of property and its 
uses. Let it be felt that property is a high trust from God; that 
great wealth laid up for those who have had no part in its acquisition, 
does not generally add either to their respectability or to their hap- 
piness; that wealth spent selfishly is less enjoyed than if spent be- 
nevolently ; and that it is better, as far as possible, that men should 
administer on their own estates, and we should find no want of oil 
at those points in the machinery of society where there is friction 
now. Here lay no small part of the work of Amos Lawrence, a 
name never to be pronounced by me but with afi"ectioi:ate veneration. 
With this work others in my own region, a Williston, a Hitchcock, 
a Jackson are co-operating ; and now, in this region of beauty, and 
of the Divine bounty, we rejoice to find those who are giving to these 
sentiments practical emphasis and enforcement. We rejoice to find 
one who is disposed to esert that sublime power over the future, 
which the arrangements of Providence permit to those who choose to 
cut channels for great wealth, by which it shall irrigate society for 
all time to come. 

Another consideration, and the chief one that weighed with me 
in accepting the invitation, was the assurance that the Bible is to be 
made the Corner-Stone of the institution. Literally it is to be placed 
in the corner-stone, not as an empty ceremony, but as a symbol, and 
as a pledge that the institution shall be conducted in accordance with 
the principles of that blessed book. The Bible, the Bible, sir, is our 
sheet anchor. It is the chart for the individual, for the community, 
for the race. Only by the light of its principles, and through a par- 
ticipation in its spirit, is there permanent progress for man. This all 
history shows. The line of permanent progress has been that of re- 
vealed truth, and aside from the influence of that there is no evi- 
dence of any law of progress in the race. 

There has never been on the face of the earth an instance of a 
nation without the Bible, whatever may have been done in the arts, 
and in those appliances which minister to a sensuous luxury, that has 
reached true conceptions of human rights, especially of the rights of 
conscience ; true conceptions of liberty in its relation to law ; that 
has attained any civilization and moral order that can be compared 
to Christian civilization and order, or that has not reached its limit 



20 

and then fallen Lack into that most hopeless of all states, an effete 
civilization. And now, in lands nominally Christian, neglected as it 
is in Protestant states by worldliness, and scorned as it is by infidel- 
ity, yet in passing from those states where there is an open Bible, 
to those where it is hated and suppressed by popery, we see at once 
that we are passing into an inferior civilization, and a lower social 
state. And what has been, will be. No weapon formed against the 
Bible will prosper, and no institution not based upon it, and in 
accordance with it, can ultimately succeed. 

In entering, then, upon new undertakings, in meeting new wants, 
in adapting institutions to the progress of society, so that they shall 
both guide and stimulate that progress, we must assume some things 
as settled, and among these, the necessity of the Bible to a state of 
society at once stable and progressive. Why should we persist in 
rolling the stone up the hill only that it may roll back ? Why re- 
peat the experiment of the frog that climed two feet up the well 
every day, and fell back three feet every night ? Does not every 
thing within us and without us, and every adjustment and relation 
of that which is within to that which is without, show that there is a 
personal God who is the Father of us all ? If there be not, then let 
us give ourselves up to be drifted, we know not, and care not whith- 
er. But if there be such a God and Father, then can the true ends 
of the individual and of society be reached only in accordance with 
His plans, and in obedience to His laws. Then will a knowledge of 
these plans and laws be the best part of education, a conformity to 
them the only wisdom, and the knowledge of them must be sought 
by every available means. Then, if He has spoken, we must listen. 
If He has thus made the only effectual appeal to those higher facul- 
ties by which we may be united to Him, then must that appeal be 
heeded, or an irregular and perverted action will run through all the 
faculties, that will vitiate all results. The Bible itself, the pillar of 
fire to those who heed it, will be, to those who do not, a source of 
utter confusion ; it will be hated as no other book, and will seem to 
ray darkness upon them. Instead of the purity, and love, and joy, 
and elevation of a free and rational worship, there will be either the 
apathy and paralysis of scepticism, or the buffoonery, the formalism, 
the licentiousness, the cruelty, the degradations of idolatry and su- 
perstition. Between these we must choose. The faculties must act ; 
they must act in their unity and according to their law, or that action 
will be perverted ; there will be in it, a law of degradation, and from 
it, every form of anomalous and hideous development. 



21 

This estimate of the Bible is from no superstitions, conventional, 
transmitted reverence, without insight. We hold that in his com- 
plex nature, man is still a unity, because all his powers may, and 
should, converge to a common end. We hold that this end can be 
attained only as that which was intended to rule, rules, and finds its 
perfection in ruling, and as that which was intended to serve, serves, 
and finds its perfection in serving ; and that any training of these 
powers not involving a right apprehension of their mutual relations, 
must be disastrous. Hence we hold that man can be properly edu- 
cated, that society can be elevated, that the intellect even, which is 
an instrumental, and so a subordinate power, can reach its full capa- 
city, only under the lead of the spiritual and moral nature. A7id we 
hold that in the present state of man there is, for this nature, ade- 
quate guidance and stimidus only in the Bible. Let the moral na- 
ture be set right without the Bible, and we are content. The Bible 
is but a means. Let man become what he ought to be, and we ask 
no more. Let those who would reject the Bible, reject it wholly, 
and not stealthily borrow from it, and then let them, without it, m 
imbue society with the principles of morality that it shall not be per- 
vaded as with a dry rot, and shall hold its own, and so far forth we 
will discard the Bible. But all attempts at this have failed. They 
will fail ; and hence it is wisely done, and well, that in laying the 
foundations of this institution, the Bible should be recognized as its 
Corner Stone. 

But in thus adopting the Bible, would there not be in the insti- 
tution something restricted, bigoted, cramped ; some want of enlarge- 
ment and progressive power ? Would the Bible admit and sanction 
the peculiarities proposed in the People's College ? It would, if the 
College would really do any thing for the people, because, of all 
others, the Bible is the people's book. There, in its eternal princi- 
ples of equity ; in the unspeakable value attached to every human 
being ; in the equality of all men before God ; in the revealed facts 
of a common sinfulness and a common redemption, we find a natural 
and sufiicient basis for equal rights, and the reason why the people, 
and all the people, should be cared for, enlightened, honored, elevat- 
ed. There we find that the annunciation of the coming of Christ 
was to be glad tidings to all 2^eople ; that there was in him no taint 
of aristocratic pride, or of any clannish and selfish exclusiveness. 
His benevolence was as open and as free as the sunlight. All that 
he did, all that he said, all that he sufi'ered, every provision that he 
made was for the race, and for the whole race. If ever there was 



22 

an example of universal, unrestricted good will, embracing every 
aspect and phase of humanity, it was that of Christ. 

We do, indeed, find in the Bible, those great moral conditions 
and limits within which we must work in education, if we would suc- 
ceed, just as we find in the laws of nature the limits and conditions 
of our work there ; but in neither case is there any thing narrow, or 
restrictive, or baffling. If the law of gravitation limits us to the 
earth, it also gives us a firm footing, and is the condition of all our 
power to work. The same is true of moral conditions and limits. 
Principles must be given and adhered to, and we must work in and 
through them. The Bible is a book of principles, not of detail, and 
so capable of being at once conservative and progressive — of con- 
serving all that is in the principle, and which must be conserved, if 
the principle be right — of progressing in all that pertains to the ap- 
plication of the principle till the results of that principle shall be 
fully realized. Here is the true secret and element of a blended 
conservatism and progression. " I will hold on to the truth," said 
Dr. Justin Edwards, than whom we have had no better example of a 
man at once conservative and progressive, " I will hold on to the 
truth, but with a limber elbow." So will we be inflexible in holding 
on to the great principles of the Bible ; but in all that pertains to 
their application, we will have " a limber elbow." 

What, then, are the peculiarities proposed in the People's Col- 
lege ? If, sir, in assuming this name. The PeopWs College, it is in- 
tended to imply that our present Colleges are not People's Colleges, 
I entirely dissent. The object of the College is, 1st, to give a liberal 
education ; and 2d, to make it accessible to all ; and I wait to be 
shown an institution that is, either in theory or practice, in spirit or 
results, more in accordance with the spirit of equality and of freedom. 
In practice, it is even more so than the common school, for private 
schools are often substituted for that, but for the College there is no 
substitute. 

By a liberal education, we mean the cultivation of man, as man. 
We mean the symmetrical expansion and discipline of his powers. 
By the expansion of the powers, we give them strength ; by their 
symmetrical expansion we give them balance ; by discipline, we give 
the man control over them. We thus have strong men, with well 
balanced powers, fully subject to their own control. Such an edu- 
cation is distinguished from a professional, a special, and what some 
would call a practical one, by the fact that knowledge and power are 
gained without reference to any specific end, or with chief reference 



23 

to that last and farthest end of knowledge, of which Lord Bacon 
speaks. " The greatest error of all," says he, '' is the mistaking or 
the misplacing of the last and farthest end of knowledge ; for men 
have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon 
a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain 
their minds with variety and delight ; sometimes for ornament and 
reputation ; sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contra- 
diction ,• — most times for lucre and profession, and seldom sincerely 
to give a true account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use 
of men ; as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to 
rest a searching and restless spirit, or a terrace for a wandering and 
variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect ; or a tower 
of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort, or com- 
manding ground for strife and contention ; or a shop for profit or 
sale, and not a rich store-house for the glory of the Creator, and the 
relief of man's estate." Institutions in which this idea shall be cen- 
tral, involving a prescribed course and a rigid discipline, we must 
have, or our whole system must lose its unity, and dignity, and power: 
There will, indeed, be no system of liberal education, and education 
itself will be displaced from among the fine arts. It will lose its 
high inspiration. Its work will become a drudgery. Its teachers 
will cease to be professional agents, and will do work to order. Wh}", 
sir, if the teacher in a gymnasium were applied to to train a man to 
be a blacksmith, he might give him a brawny arm, and it would be 
a good work ; if he were asked to train one for a porter, he might 
give him the legs and shoulders of a porter of Constantinople ; but if 
he were asked to train the man to walk, to run, to leap, to lift, to 
throw, — to all the quickness and force and continuance, the dignity 
and grace of movement of which he is capable, it would be quite 
another thing. In the one case, he would aid a man in getting a liv- 
ing in a particular line ; in the other, he would make his muscles 
" a rich store-house " of strength and skill, " for the glory of the 
Creator," and one which might be used in any direction, " for the re- 
lief of man's estate." 

And not only must we have such institutions, they must be ac- 
cessible to all. The theory would require that they should be as 
much so as the common schoool. 

The education must be so good that no man, whatever may be 
his wealth or station, can send his son elsewhere except to his dis- 
advantage, and so little expensive that every boy, who has it in him 
to be a scholar, and to become a light and a power in the land, can 
avail himself of it. 



24 

This it! the theory of the College. Towards this, the friends of 
Colleges have been working. They have made mistakes ; there have 
been, and are, too many Colleges ; they are not sufficiently endowed; 
but certainly an institution which has it for its object to give the 
highest education, and make it accessible to all, and thus to place 
side by side in all that pertains to a true manhood and the best 
means of success in life, the son of the poorest and of the richest, and 
which actually accomplishes this, may be said, if any one can, to be 
the People's College. The people have a right to the very best in- 
stitutions, they ought to have them, and there should be no implica- 
tion that they are not theirs. 

So far, then, as this institution shall give a liberal education, it 
will not be distinctively, the People's College. It can be so only as 
it shall be of the nature of a professional school, and shall give in- 
struction in the theory and practice of those occupations which are 
more generally pursued by the people. Such instructions it will, I 
presume, be the primary and specific object of the institution to give, 
and the more perfectly it can combine with these an education truly 
liberal, the better. If, however, we are not to have virtually two in- 
stitutions, one for a liberal, and one for a professional education, all 
experience shows that there will be required a large outlay, and 
much practical wisdom in the combination. 

Is, then, an institution needed for these specific purposes ? We 
say yes. This arises from the vast extension of the physical sciences 
within the last fifty years, and from their intimate connection with 
the business and enjoyment, and progress of society. 

They have been like a newly discovered, or upheaved continent, 
rich in gems, and pearls, and mines of gold, and requiring old rela- 
tions to be readjusted. These sciences have been taught in our Col- 
leges. Their professors have been its high priests ; they must be an 
essential part of a liberal education. But there has been a growing 
feeling that the colleges did not, in that respect, meet the wants of 
the community. With this feeling I have sympathized, and have 
never failed to encourage the establishment of Lyceums, and of Agri- 
cultural schools. Physical science is capable of being made popular, 
not only in its facts and wonderful applications, but in its principles. 
Let it be made so ; let it be made accessible to the people, and to 
all the people. 

And, sir, I should expect that an education in which physical 
science, and its practical application, rather than classical learning or 
metaphysical study, should be the predominating idea, would in some 



25 

respects be superior to that given in our colleges, and thus tend to 
correct what is one-sided and partial in that, for, as I have said, the 
Colleges have made mistakes. 

And, 1st, it would tend to quicken and improve the powers of 
observation. 

There is room in these sciences for inferences, in some, for those 
mathematically drawn ; but the basis of all is observation, the use of 
the five senses, and the tendency is to improve the power of observa- 
tion. In the College, the tendency is the other way, and this power 
is not cultivated as it may be, and should be, and I think will be. 
Few know what capacities there are in the senses, till they attempt 
to supply the loss of one through another ; and for want of the power 
of observing through them, many go through life " seeing and see not." 

In the second place, such an education would tend to give a 
knowledge of things rather than of words. Education is concerned 
either with things, or with their signs. These are intimately asso- 
ciated; so much so, that, in our general speculations, we think bv 
means of signs. These signs, combined into a language, have their 
laws, and are well worthy of study as monuments of a wisdom more 
than human, and as expressions and depositories of human thought. 
But men have studied languages till they have forgotten the things 
they denote. They have reasoned by means of words, and have mis- 
taken verbal connections for the connection of things. They have 
connected in sentences words which they supposed to correspond to 
things, when they did not, and so have spoken and written nonsense 
without knowing it. They have been word-mongers, verbal triflers, 
than whom nothing could seem to earnest men more impertinent, in 
a world like this. There was a time when education consisted chiefly 
in the knowledge of language, and the power of disposing words into 
logical formulas. But most educators now understand, that the 
knowledge of things is more important than that of their signs, and 
that the best way of teaching, respecting any thing that can be sub- 
jected to the senses, is to subject it to the senses. Let the thing be, 
not described only, but seen, and touched, and then it will be known. 

No man knows, or can know, how the moon looks through a tele- 
scope, or a fixed star, or a nebula, till he sees it. No young person 
can adequately know granite, or mica slate, by description. Things 
capable of being learned through the senses, must be learned through 
the senses. This will require apparatus that shall illustrate every 
process of nature and of art, that shall sound the depths of nature 
both in her vastness and in her minuteness ; it will require specimens, 



26 

collections, cabinets, that shall epitomize nature, and present in one 
view, and in orderly arrangement, the scattered materials of science. 
In all this, the tendency of this institution will be in the right di- 
rection. 

Again, we may hope for improvement from this institution in the 
combination of physical with mental labor. This is a most important 
point, and presents a problem not yet solved. 

The object here is, 1st, health ; 2d, economy ; and 3d, a knowledge 
of some manual occupation that may, if need be, be fallen back upon 
in after life. Sir, I would that each of these objects might be ac- 
complished for every literary man. It would give dignity to labor, 
and health and independence to literature. There are few objects 
more helpless or pitiable, than a man who attempts a liberal education, 
and through that to attain a support and position in society, and fails. 
Such cases are not uncommon. Parents make mistakes ; young men 
make mistakes. Mentally, or morally, they are unqualified for that 
great work. Instead of gaining intellectual power they lose physical 
power ; they smoke, and lounge, and instead of getting an education, 
simply get muddled. What can they do ? Some lose their health, 
and what can they do ? They need to have, as the Apostle Paul, 
and the learned Jews generally, had, some craft to fall back upon. 
This the Colleges cannot give. At present, they attempt nothing 
systematically. The whole thing is lumbering along. Manual labor 
schools are regarded as a failure, and the country is lying on its oars. 
The best the Colleges can do, is to give to the muscles a training 
according to the system of Ling, having for its end their symmetrical 
development, and perfection ; that is, to give them a liberal education. 
This they ought to do. If any one will furnish the means, I will see 
that it shall be done in one College at least. But even this would 
not be as desirable as what is proposed in this institution. What 
would be most desirable of all, and I think perfectly practicable here, 
would be a combination of what may be called a liberal and a profes- 
sional training for the muscular system. At any rate, let us have 
some training. Any system of education which results practically in 
the deterioration of the body, is false. Why should this complex 
and wonderful system be ignored, and its health and capabilities of 
symmetry, and grace, and power, and of ministering to the higher 
wants of the spirit, be wholly neglected, or left to inexperience and 
caprice ? Leave young men to themselves, with their innate tenden- 
cies to indolence, and with the prevalent wretched habits in regard to 
narcotics, and many of them will deteriorate. You see it, and would 



27 

gladly prevent it, but are powerless. Sir, I go heartily with this 
institution in its attempt to solve the problem of a right combination 
of physical with mental labor, and of both, so far as possible, with 
self-support. 

But the great object of a People's College, and one that would 
justify any outlay, is to unite in the same person, the hands that do 
the working with the head that does the thinking. It is the mastery 
of nature by science, and then the intelligent application of science, 
with and without mechanism, to the purposes of human life. It is 
one great feature of this age, that mechanism and science are in such 
intimate combination with all our industrial products and pursuits. 
By machinery we spin, and weave, and plant, and mow, and reap, and 
chisel, and plane, and knit, and sew, and travel. Some of the ma- 
chinery seems to think, and so rapid is the improvement in it, that 
the machinery of one year scarcely serves for the next. It is scarcely 
more a business now to produce what is immediately needed for man 
than to produce the machinery for producing that. So also, by sci- 
ence we analyze and compound soils, we make and apply manures, we 
bleach, and dye, and tan leather, we avail ourselves of the affinities, 
attractions, repulsions, powers of combination that there are in matter, 
and reach the precise element that does the work in every process. 
We make steam mightier than a giant, and as versatile as a Yankee. 
We make an artist of the sun, and of the lightning an engraver and 
a post-boy. 

In this way the primitive implements and processes of a simple 
and rude period are superseded, the products of industry, and the 
demands for them are diversified and increased a thousand-fold, and 
as these are increased so are wealth and leisure. But as this process 
goes on, it is obvious that intelligence, skill, a knowledge of princi- 
ples, and the power of adaptation to emergencies in applying them, 
will enter more and more into all production ; and that what will 
amount to a high, if not to a liberal education, will be required in 
conducting most profitably industrial pursuits. 

In managing every machine that has a principle, in conducting 
every process that has a philosophy, we would have those who man- 
age the machine understand the principle, those who conduct the 
process understand its philosophy. 

Guided by such knowledge, labor will be respected, and will be 
profitable. We thus reach two elements that are indispensable to 
the prosperity of free institutions, and which, with the moral ele- 
ment, will secure that prosperity, and give them a resistless power 



28 

of extension. These are, labor respected, and labor compensated. 
Let labor be respected as it should be, and compensated as it should 
be, and you may fling to the winds all fear for the extension, or per- 
manent existence of slavery. But to be respected, labor must not 
only be free, it must be intelligent ; and we all know that, as a gen- 
eral rule, compensation will be as the intelligence and skill required 
in the labor. Sir, we hope that this institution is to do something, 
is to do much in promoting respect for labor, and compensation for 
labor. We trust that it will be to these the means of a permanent 
onward step. In the great conflict that is now going on between, I 
will not say free and slave labor, but between labor enlightened and 
respected, and labor imbruted and despised, we trust that this insti- 
tution will be a prominent agent in harnessing the agencies of nature, 
and the might of machinery to our free institutions, and in bearing 
them on with augmented beauty and power, to their full and ulti- 
mate triumph. 

In all these points will this institution be in accordance with the 
Bible, and in none more so than in the study of the works of God 
for the benefit of man. " Consider," says the Scripture, " the won- 
drous works of God." " Dost thou know the balancing of the 
clouds, the wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge ? " 
" The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have 
pleasure therein.'' The Bible has no fear ; we have no fear, of any 
conflict with the Bible from a study of the works of God. Certain- 
ly there are points in the study of those works at which men may 
diverge into scepticism. When they look at the origin of matter, 
and the impossibility of conceiving of its creation, they may identify 
it with the substance of God. When they look at those uniformities 
on which science is based, they may see evidence of nothing higher 
than an impersonal power. But these are the very points where an 
enlightened reason would stand with the highest wonder and adora- 
tion. Certainly we cannot fathom the mystery of creation ; but it is 
only in the presence of that, and others like that, that speculation 
becomes rapt into a rational wonder, and that the spirit echoes back 
the words of inspiration : " Who by searching, can find out God ? " 
Certainly we are placed in the midst of a vast system of uniformities 
which we call nature, uniformities of succession, and uniformities of 
construction ; but it is only when we see that it is in that very uni- 
formity that there lies all the power there is in nature of teaching 
man ; that from it is derived all the power that man has over nature ; 
only when we see it thus ministering to freedom and therefore origi- 



29 

nated in freedom, and upheld by the might of Infinite Will, that the 
spirit again echoes back most fully the words of inspiration : " Great 
and marvellous are thy works. Lord God Almighty." 

These general observations I make without having been in the 
counsels of those who have originated this institution, and with no 
knowledge of local questions. I make them on broad grounds, feel- 
ing that the vast increase of physical science, and the change of its 
relations to industrial pursuits, require a diversity of institutions. 
I make them, too, willing that great resources should be held by in- 
telligent men " with a limber elbow," to make trial of new combina- 
tions in the educational elements. I do not believe that perfection 
in education is yet reached. I do not believe that we have yet learned 
how to make of man all that may be made of him. Who shall say 
this of man, the most complex, and impressible, and flexible of all 
beings, when we are daily finding new capabilities and uses in the 
simplest objects and elements around us ? Here is a fiddle with one 
string. See what sounds you can bring from it. Now let a musi^an 
of high power take it, and you will see that there are capabilities in 
it that you did not know how to bring out. But now let Ole Bull 
take it, and it will appear that there are capabilities in that one 
fiddle string that have been unknown since the world began. Can 
he exhaust them ? I do not know. But so far as matter is capable 
of education, that fiddle string would be perfectly educated only when 
every capacity for music there was in it should be called out. Take 
some water. It may become two separate gases, or vapor, or snow, 
or ice, or steam. In becoming ice, it may split rocks ; as steam, it 
drives engines ; in the hydraulic press, it may move the world. Is 
it yet trained as it may be ? Here is electricity. Now it is the 
bolt of heaven ; now the plaything of a philosopher ; now a medical 
agent ; now it passes from city to city, and tells the news ; and now 
it is taught to traverse the bed of the Atlantic, and was but yester- 
day writing the names of Field, and of his associates, in letters of 
fire all over the land. Who shall teach it the next lesson ? Who 
bring out all its capacity ? 

Up to a certain point, man is like matter, acting by a law of ne- 
cessity, as he is acted upon. Here he will be fully educated only 
as every susceptibility is awakened, and every harmony between him 
and the external universe is called forth. But beyond this, man is 
an agent, with the power in himself of a free and independent ac- 
tivity. Here is the baffling element, the source of an endless com- 
plexity. This free and spiritual being ! Who shall, I will not say, 



30 

teaeli him knowledge, that were little ; but loho shall lead him to 
subject himself to the laws of his own being ? In this alone, is the 
development of a true manhood. Without this, what is commonly- 
called education, acquisitions, accomplishments, polish, trained facul- 
ties, the subjection of nature, are as nothing. These are a part of 
education, but not its essential part. Who shall combine all these into 
one harmonious whole ? That would be education. Who shall give 
us that noblest of all products, a true man ? In this great work, we 
welcome every aid. We welcome the aid of the institution whose 
Corner-Stone has now been laid. Long may it stand, a monument 
to the wisdom of its founders, an ornament, and a blessing to this 
beautiful region. 

ADDRESS 

By the Hon. Hoeaoe Geeeley. 

Fellow Citizens and Friends : William Hazlitt, an eminent 
scholar and critic, writing some thirty or forty years since of the Ig- 
norance of the Learned, says : 

" Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned 
know. He is the most learned man who knows the most of what is 
furthest removed from common life and actual observation, that is of 
the least practical utility, and least liable to be brought to the test 
of experience, and that, having been handed down through the great- 
est number of intermediate stages, is the most full of uncertainties, 
difficulties, contradictions. It is seeing with the eyes of others, hear- 
ing with their ears, and pinning our faith on their understandings. 
The learned man prides himself on the knowledge of names and 
dates, not of men and things. He does not know whether his oldest 
acquaintance is a knave or a fool, but he can pronounce a pompous 
lecture on all the principal characters in history. He knows as 
much of what he talks about as a blind man does of colors." 

Such is the learning which the People's College is intended to 
supplant — such the ignorance which it is designed to dispel — such 
the reproach which it is intended to remove. 

As one of the early and earnest, if not very efficient advocates of 
this College, allow me to state briefly the ideas and purposes which 
animated the pioneers in the enterprise of which we to-day celebrate 
the preliminary triumph. 

I. The germinal idea of the People's College affirms the necessity 



31 

of a thorougli and appropriate education for the Practical Man in 
whatever department of Business or Industry. The Farmer, Me- 
chanic, Manufacturer, Engineer, Miner, &c., &c., needs to under- 
stand thorougMy the materials he employs or moulds, and the laws 
which govern their various states and transmutations. In other 
words, a thorough mastery of Geology, Chemistry, and the related 
Sciences, with their applications, is to-day the essential basis of fitness 
to lead or direct in any department of Industry. This knowledge 
we need seminaries to impart — seminaries which shall be devoted 
mainly, or at least emphatically, to Natural Science, and which shall 
not require of their pupils the devotion of their time and mental en- 
ergies to the study of the Dead Languages. I am not here to de- 
nounce or disparage a classical course of study. I trust and have no 
doubt that facilities for pursuing such a course will be afforded and 
improved in this institution. I only protest against the requirement 
of application to and proficiency in the Dead Languages, of all Col- 
lege students, regardless of the length of time they may be ableio 
devote to study, and of the course of life they meditate. A classical 
education may be very appropriate, even indispensable, for the em- 
bryo Lawyer or Clergyman, yet not at all suited to the wants of the 
prospective Farmer, Artisan, or Engineer. We want a seminary 
which recognizes the varying intellectual needs of all our aspiring 
youth, and suitably provides for them. "We want a seminary which 
provides as fitly and thoroughly for the education of the " Captains 
of Industry." as Yale or Harvard does for those who are dedicated 
to either of the Professions. 

II. We seek and meditate a perfect combination of Study with 
Labor. Of course, this is an enterprise of great difficulty, destined 
to encounter the most formidable obstacles from false pride, natural 
indolence, fashion, tradition, and exposure to ridicule. It is de- 
plorably true that a large portion, if not even a majority, of our 
youth seeking a liberal education, addict themselves to Study in order 
that they may escape a life of Manual Labor, and would prefer not 
to study, if they knew how else to make a living without downright 
muscular exertion, but they do not ; so they submit to be ground 
through academy and college, not that they love study or its intel- 
lectual fruits, but that they may obtain a livelihood with the least 
possible sweat and toil. Of course, these will not be attracted by 
our programme, and it is probably well for us that they are not. 
But I think there is a class — small, perhaps, but increasing — who 
would fain study, not in order to escape their share of manual labor. 



32 

but to qualify them to perform tlieir part in it more efficiently and 
usefully — not in order to shun work, but to qualify them to work to 
better purpose. They have no mind to be made drudges, but they 
have faith in the ultimate elevation of mankind above the necessity 
of life-long, unintermitted drudgery, and they aspire to do something 
toward securing or hastening that consummation. They know that 
Manual Labor can only be dignified or elevated by rendering it more 
intelligent and efficient, and that this cannot be so long as the edu- 
cated and the intellectual shun such labor as fit only for boors. 

Our idea regards Physical Exertion as essential to human de- 
velopment, and Productive Industry as the natural, proper, God- 
given sphere of such exertion. Exercise, Recreation, Play, are well 
enough in their time and place ; but Work is the Divine provision 
for developing and strengthening the physical frame. Dyspepsia, 
Debility, and a hundred forms of wasting disease, are the results of 
ignorance or defiance of this truth. The stagnant marsh, and the 
free, pure running stream, aptly exemplify the disparity in health and • 
vigor between the worker and the idler. Intellectual labor, rightly 
directed, is noble — far be it from me to disparage it — but it does not 
renovate and keep healthful the physical man. To this end, we in- 
sist, persistent muscular exertion is necessary, and, as it is always 
well that exercise should have a purpose other than exercise, every 
human being not paralytic or bedridden should bear a part in Man- 
ual Labor, and the young and immature most of all. The brain- 
sweat of the student — the tax levied by study on the circulation and 
the vision — are best counteracted by a daily devotion of a few hours 
to Manual Labor. 

Moreover, there are thousands of intellectual, aspiring youth, 
who are engaged in a stern wrestle with Poverty — who have no rela- 
tives who can essentially aid them, and only a few dollars and their 
own muscles between them and the alms-house. These would gladly 
qualify themselves for the highest usefulness ; but how shall they ? 
If they must give six months of each year to teaching, or some other 
vocation, in order to provide means for pursuing their studies throvigh 
the residue of the year, their progress must be slow indeed. But 
bring the study and the work together — let three or four hours of 
labor break up the monotony of, the day's lessons — and they may 
pursue tlieir studies from New-Year's to Christmas, and from their 
sixteenth year to their twenty-first respectively, should they see fit, 
without serious or damaging interruption. I know that great diffi- 
culties are to be encountered, great obstacles surmounted, in the out- 



33 

set; but I feel confident that each student of sixteen years or over, 
who gives twenty hours per week to manual labor at this College, 
may earn at least $1 per week from the outset, and ultimately $2, 
and in some cases $3 per week by such labor. How welcome an ac- 
cession to his scanty means many a needy student would find this 
sum, I need not insist on. And when it is considered that this modi- 
cum of labor would at the same time conduce to his health, vigor, 
and physical development, and tend to qualify him for usefulness and 
independence in after life, I feel that the importance and the benefi- 
cence of the requirements of manual labor, embodied in the constitu- 
tion of this College, cannot be over-estimated. 

III. Another idea, cherished by the friends of this enterprise, was 
that of Justice to Woman. They did not attempt to indicate nor to 
define Woman's Sphere — to decide that she ought or ought not to 
vote or sit on juries — to prescribe how she should dress, nor what 
should be the limits of her field of life-long exertion. They did not 
assume that her education should be identical with that of the stronger 
sex, nor to indicate wherein it should be peculiar : but they md 
intend that the People's College should afford equal facilities and 
opportunities to Young Women as to Young Men, and should proffer 
them as freely to the former as to the latter, allowing each student 
under the guidance of his or her parents, with the counsel of the 
Faculty, to decide for him or herself what studies to pursue and what 
emphasis should be given to each. They believed that Woman, like 
Man, might be trusted to determine for herself what studies were 
adapted to her needs, and what acquirements would most conduce to 
her own preparation for and efficiency in the duties of active life. 
They held the education of the two sexes together to be advantageous 
if not indispensable to both, imparting strength, earnestness, and dig- 
nity to Woman, and grace, sweetness, and purity to Man. They be- 
lieved that such commingling in the halls of learning would animate 
the efforts and accelerate the progress of the youth of either sex, 
through the influence of the natural and laudable aspiration of each 
to achieve and enjoy the good opinion of the other. They believed 
that the mere aspect of a College whereto both sexes are welcomed as 
students, would present a strong contrast to the naked, slovenly, neg- 
lected, ungraceful, cheerless appearance of the old-school Colleges, 
which would furnish of itself a strong argument in favor of the more 
generous plan. I trust this idea of the pioneers will not be ignored 
by their successors. 

Friends, a noble beginning has here been made; may the euterprise 



34 

be vigorously prosecuted to completion. To this end, it is necessary 
that means should be provided — that the wealthy of their abundance, 
and the poorer according to their ability, should contribute to the 
founding and endowment of the noble institution whose Corner-Stone 
we have just laid. Let each contribute who can, and a Seminary 
shall here be established which shall prove a blessing, the parent of 
kindred blessings, to your children and your children's children 
throughout future time. 



ADDRESS 

By the Hoiir. Daniel S. Dickinson, LL. D. 

Mr. Pkesident : — The first duty of man is to learn the end and 
aim and economy of his own being, and to fulfil his mission accord- 
ingly. While all animate existence is instinct with life, man alone 
is endowed with the mysterious attribute of reason, and capable of 
progress and improvement. The fowls of the . air and beasts of the 
field remain as they were created, while man's advancement in phys- 
ical science and mental and moral culture, is every day progressing 
him towards that high destiny for which Heaven has designed him. 
Emancipated from the fetters of ignorance and barbarism, a wide 
field of useful knowledge is before him, and he has but to enter in 
and gather the harvest. 

The great object of the institution we are founding, is to place 
learning within the reach of the masses. The numerous excellent 
Collegiate Institutions now existing, however accessible in theory, 
are practically beyond the reach of the many, and the few only 
have drank inspiration at their fountains. In education, as in 
liberty, who would be free, themselves must strike the blow. All the 
Colleges and schools in Christendom would not educate a single indi- 
vidual without eifort on his part. The school affords the facility — 
the scholar must make the application. 

This institution is designed, not to cultivate a vigorous mind 
upon a weak and untrained body, but to educate both the head and 
the hand together, — to give mental and physical vigor at the same 
lixae, — to build up mind and material muscle by simultaneous train- 
ing, and dividing the hours of study and labor. Its graduates will 
go out into the world fitted for its stern duties, — having a knowledge 
of things as well as of books, and ctilculated to breast the storm as 
well as to bask in the sunshine of life. They will learn to act as 



35 

well as think — learn practice as well as theory, and be full-grown 
men qualified to discharge such duties as may be assigned them in 
life's allotment, and not like sprouts grown in the shade, in ignorance 
of any thing but books, with no practical knowledge, and like Mr. 
Macawber waiting for something to turn up before they can en- 
ter upon the duties of life. 

Mr. Dickinson continued in a similar strain at some length, but we 
have been unable to procure his remarks beyond this brief sketch. 



ADDRESS 

By the Eet. p. G. Hibbaed, Editor of the Northern Christian 
Advocate. 

Mr. President : — The occasion which has called us together 
is full of significance. My honored predecessor informed you, that he 
wanted two weeks to speak upon the subject of a People's Collie, 
founded upon the plan of the one whose Corner-Stone we this day 
place. But this would hardly suffice for me ; I should need at least 
three week?, sir, to do justice to my sentiments on a subject like this. 
This College is intended to combine theory with practice ; science 
with art, and thus give a practical application of the knowledge ac- 
quired at school. Practical wisdom is the highest wisdom. It is 
the latest growth of the human mind, the ripe autumn fruit of his in- 
tellectual labor. In childhood, the muscular and the animal prevail 
in man's character ; in youth, he is visionary, romantic, and unreal ; 
in manhood, he is intellectual and abstract ; and in age only does he 
become practical. It is so in the world's history. The progress of 
the race is but the growth of an individual upon a larger scale. The 
world has had its infancy of mere muscular and animal life. That 
was the age when man was engrossed in hunting, fishing, rude occu- 
pations, pyramid-building, war, and such like. It has also had its 
growth of romance, of mythology, poetry, and chivalry. It has had 
its manhood of the intellectual sciences, history, and the fine arts. 
But it is now only entering upon its mature style of practical life. 
The last thing a man learns is, how to apply his intellectual acquire- 
ments, his inventiveness, his genius, to procure for himself the prac- 
tical comforts of life. The type of the ancient G-recian mind was in 
this respect full of admonition. Instead of advancing from the rude 
condition of childhood with a steady gradation to the higher useful 
arts, and thus developing civilization by a natural growth, the Grecian 



36 

mind went clear over to the intellectual and abstract, and rested 
there. The G-reeks cultivated metaphysics and logic and poetry, and 
the fine arts, to an extent that furnishes models for this age, while 
their domestic architecture, and style of domestic comforts, were 
rude and semi-barbarous. What is civilization ? Is it not the diffu- 
sion of the useful arts so that a standard of external comfort and 
enjoyment, based upon correct knowledge and refinement, shall be 
common to all ranks of society ? This is practical wisdom. True 
civilization is the practical adaption of science and philosophy to the 
comfort and well-being of man in society. This is the idea of the 
People's College. It is to teach men to apply their knowledge to 
practical uses. India, and Chaldea, and Egypt, and Greece, have had 
their systems of cosmogony, astrology and metaphysics, but with all 
their knowledge of heaven and earth, they never knew how to make 
a plough. India has raised her cotton since the days of Herodotus 
and earlier, but never knew how to construct a power-loom to weave 
it, or a jenny to spin it. This day she ploughs her low lands from 
five to fifteen times before the soil is sufficiently broken for planting) 
so rude are her instruments. Egypt supplied*the world with corn, 
but she trod it into the earth after sowing with the feet of cattle, and 
thrashed it after reaping in the same way, and never had a plough, or 
a cultivator, or a drag, or a threshing machine that deserved the 
name. You may start from the eastern shore of China, and travel 
leisurely westward through Asia and Europe, till you reach the 
western coast, and you will not find a people who know how to make 
a plough on correct philosophic principles, embodying the laws of the 
wedge, the inclined plane, and screw, for cutting, lifting, and turning 
the soil. The world is just learning the use of science. From the 
days of the first man who invented tea-drinking, down to this hour, 
men have been acquainted with the existence, and some of the prop- 
erties of steam. But its use in the arts, manufactures, commerce, and 
as a mighty eivilizer, was never known till a recent day. Men have 
been familiar with the appearance of lightning from the days of the 
first man, and have supposed it was good for nothing but to make 
thunder out of, till now, when we have made it subservient to the 
highest ends of man's intelligence, and a pacific bond of nations. We 
are getting to learn that God made the world for something. It is 
written in the Bible " The earth hath he given to the children of 
men." But what does this vast patrimony avail us, if we cannot 
make it subserve our comforts ? The world is not a great fishing and 
hunting-ground for savages, but a theatre of intelligence, and man is 



37 

just learning how to press the laws of nature into his service, and 
harness her forces to do his work, and he finds that God has given 
him a rich inheritance. 

Sir, the People's College is intended to teach agriculture and the 
useful arts in connection with scientific, mathematical, and classical 
knowledge, and it marks a new epoch in the history of education in 
this country. This magnificent edifice now going up, is to be a tem- 
ple consecrated to practical wisdom. This Corner-Stone shall be the 
foundation of a new order of things in the training of our youth. 
They shall go out from these halls furnished and skilled for the useful 
and substantial callings of life. This theory of education must pre- 
vail. And, while the fabric of our free institutions shall stand, 
while the love of the useful shall possess the human breast, this in- 
stitution shall remain to bless the world, and as a monument to the 
practical wisdom of this age. 

The esercises at the College being finished, the procession was 
formed again, and proceeded to a tent, in which tables were se*to 
accommodate nearly one thousand persons. 

The dinner ended, the subjoined sentiments were then read, and 
responded to : 

1. The College of William and Mary is distinguished for her re- 
nowned sons ; Williams, for her renowned head. 

Briefly responded to by Eev. Dk. Hopkins, of Williams College, 

2. New York, the determined enemy of oppressors, and foe to 
tyrants, is well satisfied in being governed by a King. 

Eesponded to by Hon. A. S. Diven, of Elmira. 

Mr. President : I regret that the subject of the sentiment is not 
present. Were he here, good as is the pun upon his name, we would 
have something from him vastly better. No man could so well 
acknowledge the compliment as the Governor himself, and as I feel 
I should do but poor justice to him in speaking for him, I will not 
attempt it. 

I will, however, with the indulgence of the audience, most gladly 
bear my testimony in favor of the institution, the foundation of which 
these proceedings are designed to inaugurate. If I rightly compre- 
hend the design of this College, it is intended to have it what its 
name imports — a People's College : and in this country, where The 
People is the omnipotent power, how important that that power be 
intelligent. 



38 

Nothing, Mr. President, can preserve the institutions of this 
country in their republican simplicity, but equality of educational 
advantages. Let our youths all be taught at the same schools, from 
the same books, and by the same teachers, and our men and women 
will grow up with a firm conviction, that their equality is not meas- 
ured by dollars and cents. 

Take the soft child of luxury, with his coat of fine texture, his 
polished shoes, his fine linen, his carefully arranged locks ; send him 
to a school where he will be placed at the same form with the coarse 
urchin, with his uncombed locks, coarse, patched coat, and bare 
feet ; my little gentleman will, at first, look down scornfully upon 
his rough neighbor, who will shrink back ashamed from the haughty 
look. But soon both are absorbed in their studies, and all else is 
forgotten; the hour for recitation arrives, and they are together 
summoned to exhibit their progress ; it is found that the glossy coat 
has not advanced its genteel wearer, and that the patches have not 
retarded their rough owner. Day after day passes thus, and in their 
trials of intellect, trials, which alone determine the superiority or 
inferiority of men, it is soon apparent that the clothes of the boy, or 
the dollars of the father, have nothing to do in deciding the victory. 
My nice young gentleman gets sorely puzzled with his sum in arith- 
metic, and leans over to his rough neighbor for assistance, and, as it 
is promptly rendered, no haughty look of superiority is returned. 
My little urchin is perplexed with a question of grammar, and he 
feels no shyness in drawing on his fine companion for assistance. 
Thus, they toil together up the hill of science, and when their school 
days are about to end, and a last grand struggle for the prize of su- 
periority comes, the last thing that will occur to either, as influen- 
cing the decision, will be their respective conditions in life. Can 
these boys ever, in after life, feel that their equality is to be gradua- 
ted by the money they may respectively possess ? 

Only let our youths all be educated in the same schools, and I 
will never fear any danger to the institutions of our country from a 
moneyed aristocracy. But let us have one school for the rich, and 
another for the poor, train our children with the idea that poverty 
is a badge of inferiority, and society will become stratified — the 
terms plebeian and patrician will belong to our dictionary. This 
state of society will lead to the degradation of labor, and the over- 
throw of the republic. 

It is becatise I understand the design of this College to be to 
promote the equal and thorough education of youth in all condi- 



39 

tions of life ; to blend labor with knowledge, science witb practice ; 
thus elevating, ennobling, and equalizing the people ; that I proclaim 
in its favor, and bid " Grod-speed " to this noble effort, in the name 
of the sovereign power of this nation ! Yes, sir, it is the people that 
must be sovereign in this land, and it is well known that as the sov- 
ereign is wise and just, the laws are good and wholesome. It is be- 
cause this institution is designed to enlighten and elevate the ruling 
power of the land, and diffuse happiness and justice, I again bid 
" God-speed " to the College, and the liberal minds whose influence 
and money are rearing its walls above the foundation this day com- 
menced. 

3. Men live in their history, and the influence of their acts is felt 
long after endeavors have ceased. New York justly honors the men 
whom in past years she elevated to the Executive Department of State. 
Our Ex-Governors are still governors. 

Briefly responded to by Ex-Governor Clark, who, having heartily 

commended the efforts of the Trustees, submitted this sentiment : 

% 

The People's College ; it is of the people, and for the people, and 
will be sustained by the people. 

4. The legislature of New York has uniformly acted on the 
principle that the most effectual method of promoting Agriculture, 
Commerce and Manufactures, is to educate the people. Why should 
we fear a departure from a line of policy so long continued ? 

Responded to by the Hon. A. B. Dickinson. 

5. We are filled with wonder at the successful effort to stretch a 
Cable across the Atlantic Ocean. Its results we anticipate with 
delight, and praise the men who have, by faith and patience, thus 
proved to the world that knowledge is power. Honor to whom honor 
is due. But to create knowledge is greater than to circulate it. 

Hon. Horace Greeley being called on, responded as follows : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : — The stretching of a telegraphic wire 
from Europe to America undoubtedly marks an important era in the 
history of human progress, and it is not unreasonable to hope, that 
this grand achievement may signally contribute to the advancement 
of Science, Knowledge, Yirtue, Religion and the Arts of Peace. 

Rather more than twenty years have elapsed since I was invited 
to attend an exhibition of President Morse of the New York Uni- 
versity in one of the halls of that institution, of an apparatus invented 



40 

hj him for making electric shocks and currents available for the 
instantaneous transmission of intelligence over long distances. I 
obeyed the invitation and witnessed the transmission of currents 
through a coil of wire said to be ten miles in length, and the convey- 
ance of messages and answers (as was said) by means of this new 
Mercury. A few years thereafter, Px-esident Morse was enabled, by 
the well directed bounty of Congress, to construct a line of telegraphic 
wire from Washington to Baltimore, by means of which the practica- 
bility and vast utility of his invention was demonstrated beyond the 
reach of cavil. Henceforth the progress of electric telegraphing was 
triumphant and rapid, until its slender wires had, in a few years, 
permeated and knit together the whole civilized world. 

Four or five years ago, my friend and neighbor, Cyrus "W. Field, 
informed me that he had taken up the previously attempted, but 
unsuccessful enterprise of an Atlantic telegraph, and had induced a 
few friends to join him in a new attempt to realize the grand idea of 
instantaneous communication between the old world and the new. 
He did not ask my advice, for he had decided on his course ; but 
if he had asked it, I should very probably have responded : — " Mr. 
Field, you are now blessed with an ample competency, a loved and 
loving family, a prosperous business, and every earthly element of 
happiness ; beware how you risk too much in so dubious an enterprise 
as telegraphing." I listened to his sanguine projects and said little 
or nothing ; and he departed to traverse inhospitable islands, to besiege 
legislatures, importune courts, solicit the confidence and co-operation 
of capitalists, to encounter rebufis, disappointments, losses, sufi'erings, 
failures ; until at length a magnificent success has rewarded his gen- 
erous daring, and rebutted my timid scepticism. He had a sound, 
sustaining faith, which led him on, like Columbus and other immortal 
benefactors of mankind, to a triumph which mortals may envy and 
angels rejoice over. Others have nobly co-operated; but the chief 
honor has been fitly awarded to the man, whose faith never swerved, 
until it finally surmounted fortune and conquered despair. 

So, in our enterprise of a People's College, there have been some 
who have done, as I trust many will do, nobly ; and I deprecate that 
spirit which would heap all the honor upon a single head. That 
honor, none would be more eager to disclaim than he who, in our 
case, is asked to bear it. He does not aspire to be sole founder and 
benefactor of the People's College ; there is enough here for many to 
do, and I for one claim the privilege of contributing my mite. Were 
a thousand to help, there would be work enough, honor enough for 



41 

all. But to one man is it pre-eminently due, that we are this day 
assembled to rejoice over the People's College as no longer a mere 
project, a thing of words, an unrealized idea — but an institution which 
has a local habitation and a name, and something more than these. 

While many desired, and expected and hoped, one man stepped 
forward and said : " The People's College shall be ;" and it is. Ene- 
mies may say that he had a personal end to gain ; I would that all 
men had personal ends that they pursued so worthily. Detractors 
may urge, that he sought through the College, to build up his favorite 
village ; I would that every wealthy man had a village that he would 
seek to build up by means like these. Let who will say, that this is 
a shrewd desire to achieve personal ends ; I answer that only a noble 
soul can perceive that personal ends can be wisely subserved by such 
beneficent means. 

I ask your concurrence, therefore, ladies and gentlemen, in this 
sentiment : 

Charles Cook : — the man who believed, and dared, and did. 

Hon. Henky Bradley, of Penn Yan, now being called, rose and 
said : However grateful might be the duty to speak to so worthy a 
sentiment, he could not but feel the embarrassment of attempting it 
without tlie opportunity of a moment's thought. 

In the scenes of this day, we are naturally led to contemplate the 
history of the past. Some of us here remember when this whole 
country, represented on this occasion by an intelligent, prosperous 
and happy people, was nearly an unbroken wilderness ; when the In- 
dian and the wild beast roamed in all the wildness of nature. 

How great the change in a little more than fifty years ! The 
wild savage has given place to civilization and Christianity, the wild 
and dangerous beasts have given place to our beautiful and useful 
domestic animals, the forests have fallen, and in their place have come 
the rich cultivated fields, waving with the golden harvest, and last, 
but not the less wonderful, the regal, palatial shanty of the Indian 
Queen, Catharine Montour, has given place to the noble People's Col- 
lege, whose Corner Stone has this day been laid in due form, in the 
presence of this multitude of witnesses. 

No one can look upon Western New York and contemplate its 
past history, and its present strength and greatness, without being 
forced to the conclusion, that its future destiny may, and Providence 
continuing to favor, will be, inconceivably grand and glorious. With 
a soil of unsurpassed excellence and strength, adapted to the produc- 



42 

tion of all tlie necessaries and most of the luxuries of life ; with a 
climate temperate and bland, securing alike against the burning sun 
of the tropics and the chilling blasts of the Northern regions ; with 
lakes, rivers, and water-falls, whose celebrity is 'A'orld-wide ; with 
immense deposits of the most useful minerals in its hills and valleys : 
add to these its great and rapidly growing cities, springing up as by 
magic, its immense agricultural districts, dotted with thrifty and 
prosperous villages ; its stupendous canals, with all their tributaries, 
bringing the facilities of navigation to every section of the State ; its 
immense net-work of railroads, sending its citizens and its commodi- 
ties from place to place with almost the rapidity of lightning ; its nu- 
merous Colleges, literary, theological and medical ; its seminaries 
and common schools ; then contemplate the vast regions at the 
West, reaching to the setting sun, embracing a territory and soil that 
would support the present population of Europe and America, a large 
portion of whose commercial traffic does now and must continue, with 
all its incalculable growth and increase, to find its transit through 
our canals and over our railroads to the great commercial metropolis 
of the Western hemisphere, and who can fail to see that the time is 
not distant when there will be a continuous city from Buffalo to 
New York, a large share of which will be agricultural in its structure 
and in its pursuits. 

While nature and art have combined and contributed each its 
share to furnish the materials for this picture, it is a singular fact 
that the two great elements of industrial and productive wealth and 
advancement, the elements lying at the very basis and foundation of 
all others, have been left to grope their way without special aid 
from Colleges or scientific men. Twenty-five years ago, the mechanic 
arts and agriculture were taught by carefully eschewing science 
and books as only embarrassing the apprentice. The history of 
progress in these departments, since that period, is full of interest 
and encouragement. Light has been shed and a great improvement 
has been made within the recollection of us all, but yet this light seems 
rather to make more apparent the darkness that prevailed in these 
departments, and to force upon us the conviction that even now 
agriculture is in its infancy in this country. While my good-looking 
friend on my left (Senator A. B. Dickinson) has astonished the 
people with his wonderful achievements and extraordinary discoveries 
in practical and theoretical farming, he is every day convincing him- 
self and the people of the fact that agriculture is only in its infancy, 
and that to get it up into maturity, it must have the aid of Col- 
leges, Laboratories, Libraries and experimental Farms. 



43 

In view of such considerations, it is easy to see tliat the wants of 
the country in these departments are almost entirely unsupplied, and 
that the time has come when they require and will command atten- 
tion. 

To-day, we inaugurate a new practice; to-day, we enter upon 
a new era in the mechanic arts and in the agriculture of the country. 
From the People's College, young gentlemen, farmers and mechanics, 
will go forth with their literature and science, all over the land, 
shaping and moulding the handiwork of the honest people. Here 
chemistry, electricity, and the analysis of soils will receive attention, 
from which may flow incalculable benefits to the operatives of a world. 

The man, who discerned the signs of the times, who allowed the 
wants of the people to reach and control his inmost convictions, who 
threw himself into circumstances of an increased responsibility ; in 
short, the man, who believed, and dared, and did, will be entitled to, 
and will receive from a grateful people, a brilliant page in his 
country's history. 

% 

6. Our Kepresentatives in Congress, in the passage of Morrill's 
land bill, were true to the cause of education, and just to their con- 
stituency. 

Responded to by Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson, LL. D., who, after 
indulging in a course of facetious remark, at some length, said : 

Mr. President : — If rightly conducted, the People's College 
will inaugurate a new era in moral and physical science, and 
will give firmness as well as harmony and beauty to the so- 
cial structure : — it will quicken the pulsations of society, and 
leap from the old cumbrous system which has ministered only to 
the few, to a system which will, in its fertilizing influences, cheer 
and bless the many ; which will give us " men, high-minded men — 
men, who their duties know, and knowing dare maintain " — not 
mere reeds, which quiver before any passing breeze; but live oaks, 
of giant heart, which stretch out their defiant arms, and sink 
their roots so firm and deep in the soil, that they can withstand 
even the fury of the thunder-gust ; men who are strong, not only in 
learning, but in virtuous individuality — filled with noble impulses, 
and moral daring for their execution; men, upon whose well- 
trained arm every muscle will stand out like whip-cord — whose 
practised hand can do its perfect work in agriculture or the me- 
chanic arts ; men who will be lights in the great cause of human 
progress, and will beckon others onward, until indolence, intern- 



44 

perance, and all other social vices shall be driven from the abodes 
of civilization — until virtue, knowledge, and industry shall prevail 
throughout our land — until the light reflected from a nation so re- 
plete with elements of good, shall shoot athwart every ocean, and ' 
inspire others and less favored lands to emulate our example — in the 
education of the masses — in the practice of virtuous industry, and in 
that spirit of liberty which shall elevate, emancipate, and bless the 
whole brotherhood of man. 

7. The Colleges and Universities of "Western New York are 
young but vigorous, and the more extended their influence, the higher 
will be the grade of civilization and refinement. 

Responded to by Rev. Dr. Jackson, President of Hobart Free Col- 
lege, and Rev. President Cowles, of Elmira Female College. 

Mr. President, Ladies and GtENtlemen : I rejoice that there are 
interests which can withdraw us from party feeling and sectarian 
animosity, and unite us, as we see here to-day, in the pursuit of one 
great common object. And I am present to testify my interest in 
this noble design, (at no little inconvenience,) it being the opening of 
the new academic year at Hobart College. I own that I am anxious 
to see this great experiment in education fully and fairly tested, and 
carried out to a successful issue. It will then truly accomplish a 
generous and beneficent work for the people. But I need not 
forewarn you, Mr. President, and the worthy gentlemen associated 
with you, that you are undertaking a vast enterprise. It will require 
unflagging energy and perseverance, given by the ripest wisdom, to 
win success. But you will, I doubt not, prove yourselves equal to 
every demand and every emergency. Let not clouds and darkness 
discourage you. If you are actuated by a high Christian purpose, 
and a true wisdom in adapting means to ends, the clouds will roll 
away and the dawn of a brighter day will appear beyond. 

I am called on to speak for the Colleges of Western New York. 
1 would say, then, that these Colleges feel no jealousy towards the 
People's College. Its plans and aims are widely different, and there 
need be no interference or invidious competition. The mass to be 
educated is vast enough to absorb the energies and occupy to the ut- 
most the best appliances of all. I am, however, constrained to say, 
that injustice has been done, unintentionally, I am sure, to the al- 
ready existing higher institutions of learning, by some of those who 
have spoken here to-day. These institutions are performing a noble 



45 

work for the education of the people, and many a " coarse urchin," 
such as has been described to us in such glowing terms to-day, has, 
by their friendly aid, been raised up from the depths of poverty to 
adorn the very first stations in civil life, so as to confer the greatest 
benefits on his fellow-citizens and his country. These institutions 
are engaged in this good work now, as all along. But they look 
abroad and behold a field of action far larger than they can occupy, 
and they will rejoice in all that the People's College may be able to 
accomplish, as a co-worker in this field. I can say this with all the 
more propriety, because I have the honor to preside over a College 
where education is given to all, rich and poor, free as the water 
which gushes from the fountain on the hill-side. The Colleo-es of 
Western New York will rejoice to see the People's College achieving 
a great work in giving to the people of this State and of this country, 
a thorough, practical education. I say, then, to you, Mr. President, 
and to your associates in this generous enterprise, the Colleges of 
Western New York bid the People's College a hearty " Grod speed." 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : The sentiment to which 
I am called upon to respond, alludes to the youth and vigor of the 
Colleges and Universities of Western New Yoi-k, and their prospec- 
tive influence upon the progress of civilization and refinement. I 
have the honor to be the youngest President of one of the youngest 
Colleges in the Empire State. There is, therefore, a special appro- 
priateness in my responding to such a sentiment. 

We are here celebrating the birth of another young College, and 
we mingle our joyful congratulations over such a vigorous and prom- 
ising addition to the great family of Colleges and Universities of 
our State. This one seems to beo-in its life with remarkable vigor — 
it is already very large of its age, and of great promise. Only three 
years ago, a sister College was admitted to the great family of 
literary institutions — the first of its sex recognized by the State — 
that was the Elmira Female College, over which I have the honor to 
preside. 

These two young institutions, the People's College and the Elmira 
Female College, so near of an age, so near each other in locality, and 
having so many similar plans and principles, ought surely to cherish 
a special reciprocal intimacy, a truly fraternal and sisterly affection. 
The mission of both is almost a common one ; the one to educate the 
people, the other to educate wives suitable for the people. There is 
so large a field for such institutions, they are as yet so few and so 



46 

comparatively feeble, ttat it is preposterous to think of rivalry or 
jealousy. At least tlie supply of students ought to be sufficient to 
fill all that are now organized, and for one I shall most heartily re- 
joice to see the ample accommodations of the noble edifice of the 
People's College crowded with earnest students. 

Western New York is beginning to take a pre-eminent place in 
respect to higher literary institutions. She has now a line of literary 
fortifications from Pennsylvania almost to Lake Ontario ; Elmira, 
Havana, Ovid, and Geneva, nearly on the same meridian, and this 
within only a few minutes' distance from the meridian of Washington. 
So that with peculiar appropriateness, may we of the Empire State 
calculate our longitude from this line. It would give me pleasure to 
notice other members of our College family, from our elder brother, 
Hobart College, to our young and beautiful sister, the Ingham Uni- 
versity of Leroy ; but, sir, the inexorable steam-whistle reminds me 
that I must hasten to the cars. 

8. The Clergy of our country are identified with the cause of 
truth and sound learning. 

Kesponded to by Rev. William H. Goodwin, D. D, 

Mr. President : It would be indiscreet in me to attempt a 
speech at this late hour, especially after such a constellation of emi- 
nent men have addressed us ; but I may be permitted to give in my 
cordial adhesion to this enterprise and to the objects of this occasion. 

The sentiment presented to the meeting, and which you have 
done me the honor to associate with my name, is as true to the his- 
tory of American learning, as it is complimentary to the Protestant 
Ministry of this country. 

The Protestant Clergy of America, sir, have ever been the friends 
and patrons of learning. American history writes them such. An 
intelligent Christianity is synonymous with a Protestant Chris- 
tianity. We abhor, sir, that sentiment, (worthy only of Paganism,) 
which declares " ignorance to be the mother of devotion." 

The civilization, planted at the rock of Plymouth, by Anglo- 
American hands, was the child of an educated and earnest Chris- 
tianity. That was the people, sir, with whom civilization and learn- 
ing, piety and patriotism, prayer and battle went hand in hand, and 
who, in laying the deep and broad foundation of our free and fault- 
less government, made a liberal education its " chief corner-stone." 

Honored as we are to-day, with the presence and eloquent offices 



47 

of the President of one of those old New England Colleges, (Kev. 
Mark Hopkins, T>. D-, President of AYilliams College, and orator of 
the day,) the alma mater of many distinguished men in Church and 
State ; what Protestant American but that must proudly remember 
that those venerated seats of learning in New England are contem- 
poraneous with American Protestant civilization. And what is true, 
sir, of New England Christianity, is equally true of the Protestant 
Clergy of the entire continent. That form of Christianity which 
they preach and love, carries in its hand an open and free Bible, 
and challenges alike the intelligent scrutiny and devout reverence of 
the most cultivated minds. 

But, sir, in responding to this professional compliment, I may 
not forget the delightful associations and import of this occasion. 

This assemblage of eminent men — Jurists and Journalists, State 
Functionaries and Eminent Civilians, Clergymen, Mechanics and 
Farmers, all are here, as by a common impulse. The corps of citi- 
zen soldiers parades in the sultry march, with the many thousand 
delighted citizens that crowd upon the scene. Sir, the intenst of 
this occasion is deep and unmistakable. 

The great popular heart is stirred, for we have met to found a 
seat of learning for the masses, to lay the " Corner-Stone " of the 
" People's College." 

It is fitting, sir, that here, at the outlet of the mineral wealth of 
Northern Pennsylvania and Southern New York, amidst this charm- 
ing diversity of natural scenery, this noble enterprise should fix its 
locality, and rear this massive and splendid monument to popular 
learning. 

It is a favorable indication, that with the rapid advances of our 
country in agriculture and commerce, there is happily a correspond- 
ing interest in the cause of popular education. If the mineral moun- 
tains of Northern Pennsylvania could pour through this valley their 
freight of golden ingots, such an influx of wealth would prove a hane 
rather than a blessing, if this, and the hundred seats of learning 
throughout our country, could not, by the power of cultivated mind, 
transform this vast accession of gain into the noble monuments of 
art and science. 

It is well, sir, that the solid men of our country are learning 
that generous alchemy which transmutes the material into the men- 
ial and precious, — the gold " that perisheth " into the " enduring 
riches." 

I could pity that man who, at the close of a long and laborious 



48 

life, could show no more laudable or enduring monument of even a 
successful enterprise, than the boundary of ample lands or a well 
filled coffer ; but I could envy that man, who, as the almoner of a 
noble generosity, largely gives to the " People's College." 

Citizens of New York, I should do equal injustice to your con- 
victions of right, and my own better impulses, if T did not, upon this 
occasion, say that to a generous citizen, in your midst to-day, you 
are especially indebted for the present success of this popular enter- 
prise, and that, with the history and future success of the " People's 
College," the name of the Hon. Charles Cook must ever be nobly 
eminent. In conclusion, I do but express the prayer of the thou- 
sand hearts before me, when I say : " Heaven bless the People's Col- 
lege," and may it shed a mild and enduring glory upon the ages to 
come ! 

9. Our newspaper editors may speak for themselves. 

Responded to by William Smyth, Editor of the Times, Owego. 

Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens : Though unexpectedly 
called to fill the place which had been assigned to one better qualified 
to address this vast audience, I will not refuse the honor of making 
a few remarks on this great occasion, as a response to such a senti- 
ment as the one just expressed. The Press, sir, has performed for 
the People's College, what it has done for every other great under- 
taking, whose end is the improvement, intellectual, moral or social, 
of the human race. But this institution, the foundations of which 
have to-day been laid with all the pomp and pageantry of Masonic 
rites, amid the plaudits of congregated thousands, has had a broader, 
firmer, and more lasting foundation laid by the Press of New York 
State, in the hearts and afi"ections of the People. No sooner was the 
plan of this institution matured and disclosed, than the Press of the 
State — not the great city organs only which speak the sentiments of 
parties and popular organizations — ^but the unpretending country 
Press, at once espoused its cause, and brought it home to the firesides 
and the affections of the People. 

Soon after the plan was devised, a meeting was held in Owego, 
and, with others, I was invited to address it. The speakers and 
hearers at that meeting had no hope that the plan of the institution 
then explained, would be so soon realized — had no idea that on the 
Second of September, 1858, the foundations of the building would 
actually be laid. The results of to-day have already far transcended 
OTir most sanguine expectations. 



49 

But, sir, this institution differs materially from other Colleges. 
It is an experiment, and one of vast magnitude and importance. 
Hitherto the student of Arts, Science and Literature, neither shoved 
the plane, wielded the hammer, nor directed the chisel or file of the 
machinist. His hand was soft as that of the lady ; his mind was 
trained to explore the heights and depths of science ; but his muscles 
were untrained, and too often unstrung, by excess of mental labor. 
This institution inaugurates a great and vital change. It weds 
together the labor of mind and the labor of body. It contemplates 
the complete training, the perfect development, of the physical and 
intellectual man. 

In this institution the student will not only read the lofty verse 
of Virgil's Georgics, but will reduce his rules to practice while 
following the " trailing-footed " oxen spoken of by Homer. The 
Differential and Integral Calculus will commingle with the ring of 
the anvil and the whirr of the machine shop. The mechanic's toil 
will be diversified by the Histories of Tacitus or the eloquence of 
Cicero and Demosthenes. The elevation which mental training and 
intellectual power confers, will be somewhat lessened by being blended 
with the more common and ordinary industrial occupations of every- 
day life, while the physical man will be correspondingly elevated, 
refined and ennobled. 

The People's College is then a great experiment, and to its com- 
plete realization and fruition, the rising generation of the people are 
now looking with anxious hopes. It will be difficult, perhaps impos- 
sible, during the first years of its actual operation, to come up to 
the expectations of the masses ; but that it will be ultimately suc- 
cessful, and not only successful, but become the germ and type for 
other kindred institutions, reaching still farther and ascending stiU 
higher, it may be, than the People's College, few will question, and 
none can doubt. 

Remarks of the Rev. Henry Rinker. 

Mr. President : — I came here to-day to hear, and not to be 
heard : and while I have listened with no ordinary pleasure and in- 
terest to the sentiments and views that have been so eloquently ex- 
pressed by others, I had not, until this moment, had the least expec- 
tation that I would be called upon to offer any remarks myself Nor, 
fortunately, will it be expected of me, at this late stage of the proceed- 
ings, that I should say much. In fact, I have been quite fully anti- 
cipated, in all that I would desire to say at such a time. 
4 



50 

As to any thing further, I feel myself very much in the predica- 
ment of a celebrated mathematical professor, to whom I had the 
pleasure of listening on a certain occasion. He stated that he had 
been endeavoring to arrange his thoughts into the form of an equa- 
tion, but when he came to examine them for the purposes of solution, 
he found that the equation contained none but unknown quantities. 
The professor's illustration, I can very appropriately apply to myself 
on this occasion ; with the addition, however, if it were mathemati- 
cally admissible, that in my case, the quantities are not only unknown 
but essentially negative. Let this be my apology for not detaining you. 
I will conclude, therefore, with the remark, that I sympathize deeply 
and fully with the friends of the People's College, so far as I under- 
stand this enterprise. My heart is with those who are engaged in this, 
as it seems to me, noble work. May the College prosper and succeed 
far beyond our most sanguine hopes and expectations ; may it not only 
live, but thrive and become a rich and lasting blessing to ourselves, 
to our children, and to all future generations. 

Remarks of Prof. J. Allen, Principal of Alfred Academy. 

Mr. Pkesident : — You and your co-laborers are doing a great 
and godlike work. If causing the sun to rise on the evil and on the 
good, and sending the rain on the just and on the unjust, is a proof of 
the divine perfection of our Heavenly Father, I can but believe that 
we are imitating those divine perfections, when we cause the sun of 
science to rise on those groping in ignorance, and the blessings of 
knowledge to be showered on all who thirst for its blessings. Yes, 
Mr. President, in inaugurating to-day the People's College, may I 
not congratulate you at having not only inaugurated a benjeficent, a 
sublime, but even a divine idea ? 

The People's College ! The very thought is beautiful, a sublime 
conception, and yet the term is not entirely new. We, the people, 
have been wont to flatter ourselves by appropriating this term to our 
common schools. We have built our school-houses, and christened 
them People's Colleges. Nor has the term been altogether misapplied 
or inappropriate. Although these institutions have not always been 
worthy of the appellation, yet, all honor is due to those who estab- 
lished our glorious common school system, and have given to the 
people such Colleges, even in their rudest forms. The people, how- 
ever, in their earnest strivings to raise themselves up to a higher 
point of intelligence and usefulness — in their earnest longings after 
the light of science and the development of their latent, their slum- 



51 

bering power, are about to gire expression and embodiment to these 
longings and strivings, in that splendid structure, the corner-stone of 
which has been so auspiciously laid to-day. That edifice, sir, if per- 
fected, as begun, will be a People's College, well worthy of the people. 
It will be a most fit exponent of the onward and upward progress of 
humanity. 

Not that this alone, of all our goodly institutions of learning, is 
the only proper benefactor of the people. All of our institutions of 
learning, our common schools, academies and colleges, constitute a 
great and harmonious educational system. They are a glorious sister- 
hood, walking the earth hand in hand, and scattering the blessings 
of knowledge and power and happiness wherever they go. This in- 
stitution, if I understand it correctly, is but another one, added to 
this beneficent sisterhood, with a somewhat different but in nowise 
antagonistic mission. 

There is such a thing as an imperfect, one-sided, or deleterious 
education. There is a gross spiritual feeding, as there is a gross 
physical feeding — resulting in spiritual dyspepsia, fevers, and many 
like spiritual maladies. A wrong or one-sided education often results 
in spiritual paralysis. Many are the spiritual dwarfs and imbeciles, 
and lame and blind, resulting from an improper education. Neither, 
on the other hand, does the true ideal of a symmetrical education 
consist in a trade or professional education — the simple drawing out 
of human powers in the slender line of a life-pursuit or calling. 

It should be the primary object of all preparatory, disciplinary 
education, to develop a systematical man — ^a man for his manhood 
rather than for his profession. If he is thus developed, fully, harmo- 
niously, then will he stand a fit candidate for all callings. A man 
having his manhood shaped and moulded in reference to a specialty, 
may succeed admirably in that specialty, while in all the other rela- 
tions of life he may be a nullity. Man should be so educated, so dis- 
ciplined, so developed, so self-poised, that he can work equally well 
in all directions ; so that, however harshly the rough trials and mis- 
fortunes of life may toss him about, he will always strike, like a cat, 
upon his feet, ready for any fate. Or to be more classical, that he will be 
a hundred-handed Briareus, and working equally well with any or all 
of them — a hundred-eyed Argus, looking here and there and every- 
where, with a keen far-searching gaze. Such men, whatever may be 
their fate in life, will ever be pursuing and achieving, and conquering. 
May such be the men and women sent forth from the People's Col- 
lege. 



52 

Permit me, sir, to close witli this sentiment — " The People's Col- 
lege. May it ever he a bright spiritual Pharos, shooting its benign 
rays athwart the gloom of ignorance, and whose ever-increasing 
brightness shall be gladly received by all on-coming generations, as 
one of the greatest gifts of the present to the future." 



VOLUNTEERED SENTIMENTS. 

Sentiment proposed by the Hon. C. S. GtOOdbich, of Brooklyn. 

"The steam engine, magnetic telegraph, and popular education, a 
triple power, the product of American genius and American philan- 
thropy, destined ere long to revolutionize the world." 

A card, accompanied by several rich clusters of grapes, was pre- 
sented to President Bkown, at the table, from Mrs. J. B. Williams, 
of Ithica. Upon the card was inscribed this sentiment : 

" May the vine which you are engaged in planting, be watered by 
Divine blessing, and bring forth its fruit in due season." 



CORRESPONDENCE 



A Letter from Governor King. 

Albany, Aug. 30th, 1858. 

Dear Sir : — Yours of the 26th inst. was received, Saturday, on 
my return from Trenton Falls. I can only express my sincere re- 
gret that my sense of duty to the constituted authorities of the Capi- 
tal of the State, and in contemplation of the great event of the age, 
should have intervened between my promise to you and its perform- 
ance. And I freely admit that I stand in need of your indulgence 
to make my excuse valid, and I trust acceptable. The sentiment 
prepared for the entertainment at your celebration, adds to my em- 
barrassment on this occasion. And I am free to say that, while it is 
very pleasing to have agreeable things said of me, I am the more 
bound to you for the friendship and regard which it indicates on your 
part. The ceremonies here on the 1st inst, continue until late in 
the evening, and if I could leave at 6 p. M., to be on the cars all 



53 

niglit would unfit me for the next day's work. If you will ijermit 
me, I will return a sentiment for the occasion, which I trust will be 
agreeable to you. " The People's College, founded and endowed by 
a private citizen ; may his liberality and public spirit receive a fit- 
ting response from the farmers of New York." 

With sincere regard, I remain truly yours, 

JOHN A. KINa. 
Charles Cook. 

A Letter from Samuel Ha'ason Cox^ D. D. LL. D., Chancellor 
of Ingham Female University. 

Ingham U^tiveesitt, Leeot, I^T. Y., Aug. 25th, 1858. 
Reverend and Honored Sir : — In reply to your special invita- 
tion to be present with you on the glad occasion that convenes so 
many with you, (September 2d,) and participate in " the feast of rea- 
son and the flow of soul," as your bright future and promising present 
are demonstrated, I regret to say, that the pleasure to me is preclud- 
ed, by positive engagements in other and distant places. Especially 
do I feel the privation, in view of the Oration ; eminently worth hear- 
ing, worth printing, worth reading, and worth diffusing everywBfere 
in our country, as I am sure it will be, from the excellent President 
of Williams College. 

Durum ! sed levius fit patieiUia, 
Quicquid corrigere est nefas. — Hor. 

But quoting Latin for the People's College ! We English it, to aid 
the common knowledge : 

Privation hard ! but patience makes it lighter, 
As many a gloomy thing is thus made brighter. 
Philosophy suggests — what can't be cured 
Or welcomed, may be pleasantly endured. 

Connected as I now am, with the interests of Education for the 
masses., for the people, I greatly rejoice in the magnanimity and the 
magnificence of this accession to its organic means and facilities, so 
worthy of the Excelsior of our State. 

The noble army of brothers that you are to recruit, discipline, 
and equip, for civic, social, mental, pacific, and ethical conflicts of 
life, let it be remembered, belong to the country and to the species — 
only as do their sisters, who need education too ! When mothers 
are well informed, wise, virtuous, and useful, hoth sons and daughters 
shall be honors, blessings, and riches to all society, to all mankind, 
unrivalled and enduring. What if I give you then, the sentiment : 

" The lovely daughters of New York ; they must not be neglected 
as sure as they have souls ! let them be enriched and adorned with 
education, thorough and solid, appropriate and ornamental ; that they 
may illustrate, in living character, the excellent nobility of America 
as each a peeress of our realm ; because, in mind, in manners, in 
deeds, evincing the proper glory of woman; the scholar, the lady, 



54 

the Christian ; combined and glorious in person, for the present and 
futixre world ! " 

The blessing of our Fathers' Grod rest on your noble enterprise, 
and crown it with enduring prosperity. 

With distinguished consideration, and respect, yours truly, 

SAMUEL HANSON COX. 
Rev. A. Beown, LL. D., President, &c., &c. 

Letter from the Right Beverend Bishop De Lancey, D. D. 

Geneva, Sept. 1, 1858. 
RsvEREND AND DEAR SiR I — Plcase to accept my thanks for your 
polite invitation to the laying of the Corner-Stone of the People's 
College and to the dinner, and my regrets at not being able to attend, 
and believe me to be. 

Faithfully, your friend and servant, 

W. H. DE LANCEY. 
Rev. Dr. Brown, Havana, 

A Letter from the Bev. G. Dewey ^ D. D., Professor in the Boch- 
ester University. 

EocHESTEE, Aug. 24, 1858. 
Mt dear Sir : — I have just returned from a visit to Massachu- 
setts, and I do not see that I can gratify myself by a visit to the 
laying of the Comer-Stone. I shall present the invitations to the 
Faculty here, for most are gone now, and propose their being present. 
There will be much to interest the friends of education and of social 
disposition, to which I need not allude. This admirable summer, 
so full of the displays of Divine goodness, invites and allures to the 
visit, but circumstances and necessity must have their power. I 
trust yon will have a grand time. Some of your speakers will be 
thrilling. 

Accept my thanks, and believe me, truly obedient, 

C. DEWEY. 
Rev. A. Brown. 

A Letter from the Son. William Kelly. 

Elleesbe, EniNEBECK, 9th Aug., 1858. 
'/Dear Sir : — I acknowledge with thanks your polite invitation to 
be present at Havana on the interesting occasion of laying the Cor- 
ner-Stone of the People's College, an event which must give pleasure 
to every friend of practical education in the State, and upon which 
you have my cordial congratulations. 

If my engagements will at all permit it, I wiU be with you. 
With much respect, I am your obedient servant, 

WILLIAM KELLY. 
Rev. A. Brown, President. 



55 



. A letter from the Hon. Edioin B. Morgan. 

Attroea, Angnst 31, 1858. 
My dear Sir : — I deeply regret that my promise to be witli you 
on the 2d Sept., to join with thoiisands of others in the interesting 
ceremony of laying the Corner-Stone of the People's College, cannot 
be redeemed. Pressing business engagements compel me to remain 
at home. 

My heart is with you in this most laudable enterprise, and you 
shall have all of my public efforts in procuring the passage of a bill 
through Congress, granting lands to the several States for the estab- 
lishment and support of such institutions. The country owes a deep 
debt of gratitude to Chas. Cook, Esq., for his very liberal contribu- 
tions and patriotic efforts to educate other peopled children. 
Very truly yours, 

EDWIN B. MORGAN. 
Rev. Amos Brown, Pres. People's College. 

A Letter from the Hon. John B. Haskin. _ 

City and County of New Toek, 

Recorder'' s Office^ No. 11 CJiamlers Street^ 
Ang. 10th, 1858. 
Dear Sir : — Yours of the 4th inst., inviting me to be present at 
the laying of the Corner-Stone of the People's College, is just received, 
and I hasten to reply. It will be impossible for me to be with you 
on the interesting occasion of your proposed ceremonial, in conse- 
quence of a professional engagement requiring my presence here on 
the 2d Sept. next. Thanking you for your kind invitation, 
I remain, yours truly, 
Amos Bbown. JOHN B. HASKIN. 



56 
APPENDIX. 



EXTEACTS FROM THE By-LaWS OP THE TnUSTEES. 

1. The Board of Trustees of tlie People's College stall hold meet- 
ings on the second Wednesday of November, February, May, and 
August, at ten o'clock, A. m., at such place as a quorum of the Board 
may direct, 

2. The Treasurer of the College shall give good and sufficient 
bonds for the faithful performance of his duties. 

3. The election of officers of the Board shall take place at the 
annual meeting in August ; and the election shall be by ballot. 

4. The annual election of Trustees by the stockholders of the 
College shall be had at the time and place of the annual meeting. 



OFFIOEES AND TRUSTEES OF THE COLLEGE. 

AMOS BROWN, LL. D., President, Havana. 

D. C. McCallum, Chairman of the Board, Owego. 

A. I. Wynkoop, Vice Chairman, Chemung. 

T. L. Minier, Treasurer, Havana. 

S. Mills Day, A. M., Librarian, Havana. 

1st Class — W. R. Judson, -E/mira ; S. Robertson, Dryden; T. C. 

Peters, Darien ; Charles Lee, Penn Yan. 
2d Class— D. C. McCallum, Oivego • C. J. Chatfield, Painted Post ; 

A. W. Jackson, Binghamton ; Horace Greeley, New 

Yorh. 
3d Class — Edward T^om-^WxiB, Binghamton ; J. H. Snell, ^Zmira; 

H. S. Randall, Cortlandville ; John Magee, Bath. 
4th Class — E. C. Frost, Havana; Charles Cook, Havana; Wash- 
ington Hunt, Lockport ; Grurdon Evans, Owego; A. I. 

Wynkoop, Chemung ; D. S. Dickinson, Binghamton. 
5th Class — W. T. LaM^rence, Cayutaville ; David Rees, Owego; 

Roswell Holden, Beading Centre; S. S- Post, Jersey 

City. 
6th Class — G-eorge J. Pumpelly, Owego ; Edwin B. Morgan, Aurora; 

T. R. Morgan, Binghamton; W. H. Banks, Pine 

Valley. 
Executive Committee. — Hon. Charles Cook, Hon. William T. 
Lawrence, CoL E. C. Frost, A. I. Wynkoop, Esq., W. H. Banks, 
Esq. 

Committee of Finance. — Hon. D. Rees, Col. Charles Lee, Ros- 
well Holden, Esq. 

Building Committee. — Hon. Charles Cook, Hon. D. C. McCal- 
lum, Col. E. C. Frost, Col. Charles Lee, A. L Wynkoop, Esq. 
Architect. — S. B. Elliott, Esq. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



028 356 873 8 



